Archive for the ‘Horses’ Category

Bagatelle (#12)

Friday, May 17th, 2019

With the Preakness Stakes running this weekend, I got to wondering:

The iconic cocktail of the Kentucky Derby is a mint julep, right? What’s the iconic cocktail of the Preakness? And the Belmont?

Since the Preakness is run in Baltimore (for now) I would have expected the iconic cocktail to be heroin. Or a 40 in a brown paper bag.

According to Wikipedia, the source of all vaguely accurate information, I may not have been too far off. Until 2009, the race was “bring your own booze”, “formerly including kegs of beer but in the 2000s restricted to all the beer cans a person could carry in a cooler.” After 2009, something called “InfieldFest” was established, where you could buy a beer mug with unlimited refills.

But there is an official cocktail: the Black-Eyed Susan, “made with vodka, St-Germain liqueur and pineapple, lime and orange juices.” Here’s a 2018 article from Newsweek that calls for “one part bourbon, one part vodka, one part peach schnapps, two parts orange juice and two parts sour mix”, shaken with ice and served over crushed ice “with an orange wedge and cherries for garnish”. Newsweek also links to recipes from “US Racing” and the Washington Post if you want to descend down that rabbit hole.

And the Belmont Stakes? Recent history is troubled. It appears that up until 1997, the official drink was something called the “White Carnation“. In 1997, the official drink changed to the “Belmont Breeze“. That, in turn, got replaced by the “Belmont Jewel” in 2011, which at least has the virtue of simplicity.

Tragically, I have plans for Saturday, so I can’t drink my way through the Preakness. But my readers are welcome to, if they wish. Just don’t drink and race: your horse might hit a bump and spill your drink.

Obit watch II.

Wednesday, April 18th, 2018

Bill Nack, noted sportwriter who specialized in horse racing.

Over nearly a quarter-century at Sports Illustrated, Mr. Nack was one of its storytelling stars, along with Frank Deford, Gary Smith, Sally Jenkins, Leigh Montville and Richard Hoffer. His subjects included horses and jockeys; the boxers Joe Frazier and Rocky Marciano, the racecar driver A. J. Foyt, the baseball players Jackie Robinson and Keith Hernandez, and a football player, Bob Kalsu, the only major professional sports athlete to die in the Vietnam War.

That Bob Kalsu story is a great piece of work.

Mr. Nack also wrote the book on Secretariat.

Starting in March 1973, Mr. Nack spent 40 consecutive days with Secretariat, joining him at 7 a.m., getting to know his team, taking copious notes and once seeing the horse playfully grab his notebook in his teeth and deposit it on a bed of hay.

And:

Mr. Ebert was one of many colleagues who recalled Mr. Nack’s penchant for reciting from “Lolita,” “The Great Gatsby” (in English and Spanish) and some works of H. L. Mencken’s.

Been through the desert…

Thursday, May 19th, 2016
Blogger, with occasional horse.

Blogger, with occasional horse.

Z is for acquittal.

Friday, May 8th, 2015

I’ve briefly touched on the whole Zetas/money laundering/horse training affair.

Latest news from the Statesman (sadly, paywalled, but there’s enough there to get the gist): Eusavio Huitron, one of the individuals previously convicted, has had his conviction reversed by the 5th Circuit.

I can’t find any other links, so I’m not clear on why his conviction was overturned. If I do turn something up, I’ll add an update here.

Obit watch: March 27, 2015.

Friday, March 27th, 2015

This has been covered elsewhere, but I did want to highlight the NYT coverage of Richard III’s reburial.

After three days of viewing by thousands who lined up for hours to file past the bier in Leicester’s Anglican cathedral, Richard’s skeletal remains, in a coffin of golden English oak with an incised Yorkist rose and an inscription giving the sparest details of his life — “Richard III, 1452-1485” — were removed overnight from beneath a black cloth pall stitched with colorful images from his tumultuous times.

I wish I could have been there.

To those seething at the spectacle of a notoriously violent monarch being rehabilitated by the church, the cardinal cautioned that power in Richard’s time was “invariably won or maintained on the battlefield and only by ruthless determination, strong alliances and a willingness to employ the use of force, at times with astonishing brutality.”

Giggle. Snort.

For more than 500 years, he has been popularly cast as one of the most odious villains of English history — the “poisonous, bunch-back’d toad” of Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” reviled as a child killer for his role, as Shakespeare and generations of historians have depicted it, as the prime mover in the smothering murders of the two young brothers known as the Princes in the Tower.

Since the 1700s, there has been a minority voice among writers and historians that has cast Richard as the victim of a conspiracy by the Tudors, whose dynasty was founded on Henry Tudor’s victory. Among these protagonists, Shakespeare is seen as having won favor at court as a spin doctor for the Tudor cause, especially for Queen Elizabeth I, who, this version contends, wanted Richard’s reputation blackened to strengthen the Tudors’ own shaky legitimacy.

I’m just going to leave these links here.

The Richard III Society.

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.

Also: nice tribute by the NYT to the author, John Burns.

Random notes: December 5, 2014.

Friday, December 5th, 2014

The 76ers, turning the fundamental belief system of sports on its head, do not mind losing. A lot.

However, they did screw up their chances of going 0-82. Philadelphia is now 1-17.

Anybody out there missing a pony?

Public service announcement: if you get an “order confirmation” email from someplace like Costco or Home Depot, and you didn’t place an online order, and the email doesn’t contain specific details about which store you should pick it up at, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T CLICK ON THE LINKS!

I’m sure most of my readers are smart enough to figure this out on their own, but I wanted to mention it here for reasons.

Cue the sad tiny violins…

Thursday, April 17th, 2014

Second day story on the Robert “Ratso” Rizzo sentencing. Not much new, but linked here for the historical record.

He developed a reputation as a micromanager who pinched pennies even as he burnished the city’s image, adding a miniature golf course and pristine playing fields.

Okay, the miniature golf course is the first good thing I’ve heard about him.

Taylor said most of Rizzo’s money and assets appeared to have been squandered on real estate investments and about 30 racehorses that would have cost more to care for than what they were worth.

I knew about Ratso’s horse racing, but “more to care for than what they were worth”? Hadn’t heard that before.

Word to my mother.

Tuesday, December 17th, 2013

A pair of flamingos might be the last to leave Betfair Hollywood Park when the Inglewood racetrack finally closes Sunday.

Random notes: November 22, 2013.

Friday, November 22nd, 2013

What a way to start the morning:

Jim Crane’s Astros ownership group filed a state court lawsuit Thursday against former Astros owner Drayton McLane, Comcast and NBC Universal, accusing them of fraud and civil conspiracy and accusing McLane’s corporation that owned the Astros of breach of contract in conjunction with Crane’s 2011 purchase of a 46 percent interest in the parent company of Comcast SportsNet Houston.

(Previously.)

Hunting rats. With dogs. In Manhattan.

The hunts are conducted something like a country fox hunt, but in an urban setting. Members say it allows their dogs — mostly breeds known for chasing small game and vermin — to indulge in basic instinctual drives by killing a dozen or two dozen rats each time they are let loose.

This is legal in Bloomberg’s New York?

The group sometimes gets tips from homeless people or police officers, Mr. Reynolds said. In fact, he said, some officers have gone from initially being suspicious of what they were doing to suggesting rat locations and wishing them luck.

A spokeswoman for the New York City Police Department said there was no information available on the legality of using dogs to hunt rats in the city.

Save horce racing! Put USADA in charge!

The United States Anti-Doping Agency is the last and best hope to return safety and integrity to the troubled sport of thoroughbred racing, members of the industry told Congress at a hearing Thursday.

The state of Alabama has granted posthumous pardons to Haywood Patterson, Charles Weems and Andy Wright. You know them better as three of the nine Scottsboro Boys.

TMQ Watch: October 15, 2013.

Tuesday, October 15th, 2013

Let us start off with one of TMQ Watch’s patented musical interludes. This one even has a small amount of relevance to this week’s TMQ:

You’ve got to love YouTube comments:

stephen scazzafavo 2 weeks ago
thumbs up for REAL COUNTRY none of this new age shiit

Yeah. About that, Steve.

Anyway, with that diversion out of the way, let’s get into this week’s TMQ, after the jump…

(more…)

Obit watch and random notes: December 28, 2012.

Friday, December 28th, 2012

For the record, your General Norman Schwarzkopf obits: NYT. LAT. WP.

I saw this a few days ago and intended to make note of it, but the holidays interfered. Donnie Andrews has also died.

Andrews was a legendary Baltimore stick-up man and all-around crook, who reformed later in life. Omar Little (of “The Wire”) was based on Andrews:

Andrews appeared on screen as one of Omar’s crew, and died in a shootout scene in which Omar leaps from a four-story building and escapes. Andrews said that really happened to him — but he had jumped from the sixth story.

The NYT would like for you to be concerned about the poor show ponies, who are frequently drugged to make them easier to handle. What makes this interesting, to me, is that yesterday the NYT ran an article praising Tattler’s Jet and his trainer; Tattler’s Jet was running his 460th and final harness race, in spite of an inflamed hoof. So. Running a horse for 14 years and 460 races, good; sedating show horses, bad.

Mongo no longer pawn in game of life.

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

The LAT is reporting the death of Alex Karras. More later.