Archive for the ‘Horses’ Category

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Bagatelle (#44)

Wednesday, August 11th, 2021

I did not give a flying flip at a rolling doughnut about the Olympics. As a matter of fact, I believe they should have been cancelled this year, they should remain cancelled for all time, and cities should use the money to provide free guitar picks for the poor.

So I missed this story last week, but you know it is the kind of thing I can’t pass up, and I don’t think it got a lot of attention.

The coach of the German modern pentathlon team was disqualified on Saturday.

As it happens, “modern pentathlon” is one of the few Olympic sports I care much about: how can you not like a combination of swimming, fencing, running, horses, and shooting? (Plus: Patton. Minus: they are apparently using laser guns these days, instead of real pistols.)

But that’s not why the story is interesting. She was disqualified because…

…she punched a horse.

The footage “showed Ms Raisner appearing to strike the horse Saint Boy, ridden by Annika Schleu (GER), with her fist,” the group said in a statement. That violated UIPM competition rules, they said.

I believe we have video of the event.

Okay, I’m sorry, that was a cheap joke, but it never gets old. Here is the actual footage:

Posted in Bagatelle, Horses, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 4, 2021.

Friday, June 4th, 2021

F. Lee Bailey.

What a career:

Mr. Bailey flew warplanes, sailed yachts, dropped out of Harvard, wrote books, touted himself on television, was profiled in countless newspapers, ran a detective agency, married four times, carried a gun, took on seemingly hopeless cases and courted trouble, once going to jail for six weeks and finally being disbarred.

And props to him for honorable service in the military:

Francis Lee Bailey was born on June 10, 1933, in Waltham, Mass., the oldest of three children of an advertising salesman, whose name he was given, and a nursery-school teacher, Grace Bailey Mitchell. He graduated in 1950 from Kimball Union Academy, in Meriden, N.H., and enrolled in Harvard but dropped out after two years to join the Navy. He transferred to the Marines and became a fighter pilot and an officer representing servicemen in courts-martial, although he had no legal training.

The NYT obit hits all the high points of his legal career: Dr. Sam Sheppard, the Boston Strangler, Patty Hearst, Capt. Ernest L. Medina, O.J….

In 1977, Mr. Bailey, a master of turning simplicity into complexity, successfully defended a racehorse veterinarian, Mark J. Gerard, from two felony charges in a notorious racetrack fraud at Belmont Park. The defendant was accused of switching two look-alike horses — a top 3-year-old, Cinzano, for a long shot, Lebon, that the New York Times sports columnist Red Smith said “couldn’t beat a fat man from Gimbels to Macy’s.”
The switch produced 57-to-1 odds, and Mr. Gerard won $80,000. But the strands of the case proved too hard for prosecutors to untangle in Nassau County Court on Long Island, and Dr. Gerard, who had tended Secretariat and Kelso, got off with a misdemeanor and a few months in jail. “The record,” an appeals court said, “reveals a factual scenario that might have been authored jointly by an Alfred Hitchcock and a Damon Runyon.”

I have a vague memory of seeing F. Lee Bailey’s “Lie Detector” when I was younger. And this is a good story:

Bailey was featured in an RKO television special in which he conducted a mock trial, examining various expert witnesses on the subject of the “Paul is dead” rumor referring to Beatle Paul McCartney. One of the experts was Fred LaBour, whose article in The Michigan Daily had been instrumental in the spread of the urban legend. LaBour told Bailey during a pre-show meeting he had made up the whole thing. Bailey responded, “Well, we have an hour of television to do. You’re going to have to go along with this.” The program aired locally in New York City on November 30, 1969, and was never re-aired.

Lawrence also mentioned that he voiced himself in an episode of the animated “Spider-Man” series.

Posted in Horses, Law, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 231

Monday, November 16th, 2020

I’ve got an eye doctor’s appointment today, so I’m being a little lazy again. I thought I’d dabble a bit in true crime.

This is an odd one, as it is from that Canadian program “The Fifth Estate”, but deals with a case in the United States: Dixon Illinois, to be exact, which is a little far south to be considered Southern Canada.

The town’s Comptroller, Rita Crundwell, embezzled an estimated $53 million between approximately 1990 and 2012 (when she was indicted). That seems to me to be an astonishing amount of money, especially for a town with a population of about 15,000. (That’s close to $2.5 million a year.)

And did she spend it on moving to a country without an extradition treaty? Nope. She spent it on…quarter horses. Supposedly, she became one of the leading quarter horse breeders in the US: at least, until she was indicted, tried, and sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison.

I personally am kind of baffled by this: there’s nothing wrong with raising horses (though stealing money from taxpayers is objectionable) but if you’re going to do it, why not raise whole horses? Why raise just a quarter of a horse? What can you do with a quarter horse?

(Yes, I will be here all week.)

Bonus: True confession, I have not watched this yet, but “All the Queen’s Horses” is a longer documentary about Rita Crundwell and the Dixon fraud.

Posted in History, Horses, Law, Sarcasm | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 170

Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

Today, I wanted to put up something that pushes a few of RoadRich’s hot buttons (and my own).

The California Highway Patrol has a YouTube channel. I thought it might be interesting to look at some aspects of operations that are common to both the Austin Police Department and the CHP. These are things that APD devotes presentations to in their Citizen’s Police Academy (which is on-hold at the moment), so why not take a look at how a department outside of the United States handles these things?

First up: “Air Operations”. This is a two-parter: Part 1.

(Can I note here that I hate “vlog”? I would say I hate the word, but it isn’t even a word.)

Part 2: this covers CHP’s fixed-wing (that is, not helicopter) operations.

You know what else CHP has? The mounted police.

You know I had to do that.

Anyway, the CHP mounted patrol.

Posted in 1970s, California Über Alles, Cops, Horses, Law, Planes, TV | Comments Closed

Brief historical note, suitable for use in schools.

Wednesday, September 16th, 2020

I would completely have missed this if it were not for Hacker News, but: today is the 100th anniversary of the Wall Street bombing.

In 1919, a coordinated attack had bombs going off in seven cities, including Washington, DC, where an explosive was supposed to land on the porch of US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. But, said Gage, “it was set to a timer and went off prematurely. The guy carrying the bomb, an Italian anarchist, got killed. Pieces of his body were found all over Palmer’s neighborhood.”

…

It’s widely speculated that an Italian anarchist named Mario Buda did the deed in retaliation for the murder-robbery indictment of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (better known as Sacco and Vanzetti). Buda, who was thought to be involved in the 1919 bombings, was never brought in for questioning and fled to Italy soon after the Wall Street attack.

There’s an interesting book by Mike Davis, Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (affiliate link). He views the Wall Street bombing as the first car bomb, even though it wasn’t really a “car” bomb.

FBI page. There’s an “American Experience” documentary that you can apparently stream for free if you’re a PBS station member or have Amazon Prime.

Posted in Explosives, History, Horses, Law | Comments Closed

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.

Posted in Bagatelle, Horses, Mixology | Comments Closed

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.

Posted in Books, Horses, Obits | 2 Comments »

Been through the desert…

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

Blogger, with occasional horse.

Posted in Cops, Horses, Law | 2 Comments »

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.

Posted in Clippings, Horses, Law | Comments Closed

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.

Posted in Books, Clippings, History, Horses, Obits | Comments Closed

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.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Horses, Loser, Sports, Stupid | Comments Closed

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.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Horses, Law | Comments Closed

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.

Posted in Clippings, Horses | Comments Closed

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.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Horses, Law, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

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…)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Horses, Mixology, Music, NFL, Sports, TV, Wagers | 1 Comment »

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