Odds and Ends

So I am cruising around and reading a little on the Olympics. It seems there is some question to the age of the Chinese gymnasts. I guess there is a rule you have to be 16, but some (apparently) are only 14. I am watching the women's gymnastics competition tonight. I think 14 is way wrong. A couple of them look like they are about 8. If they are 16 I could see them getting carded until they are 40. It kinda puts in context the mix up about running the wrong horse at Tioga last week.

Speaking of these gymnasts, I am thinking that if I had to, I could pass a bar exam. If I had a good teacher and worked at it I might be able to do an emergency surgery on someone's broken foot. I might one day be able to figure out how my vet charges $50 for 5 buck ointment. But there is no chance in hell, no matter how much I tried, I could swing on those bars like these little wee girls are doing.

I spoke to someone today who runs a customer service centre. She was saying one thing that no one is allowed to say when a customer complains about something is "it is policy and we can not change it." I laughed because whenever I ask if racing can offer free databases, or free past performances, someone inevitably says "we have a deal with equibase and it is policy that we can not offer it free." Note to racing - people don't care what the reason is. Find a way to kill that deal you made when you were a monopoly and join the 21st century will ya?

I think the Confederation Cup this year is interesting. Since there is a free draw for the final, Somebeachsomewhere (who should win elim one) has about an 11% chance of drawing the eight post in the final. There are a few nice horses in there, and as we all know, post position can be a great equalizer on halfs. I have little doubt he can get the job done, but watching the post draw after the elims will be extremely interesting.

I popped into betfair today to check the trading on a couple of races I was playing. The first one trading was very small. It was a good quality Saratoga field. The second one I checked was traded heavily. It was a cheap field. Note - when you are gambling on racing, class of the race means little. If it is shown on TV to a good audience of bettors, it will be played. The Monmouth race was on British television.

Jeremy Pierce at Harness Racing PEI is a bright guy who tries. This weeks card is simulcast on HPITV. I was hoping to run a contest and try and help them out with some handle, but time is against me this week. Live video is at their site, as well as free programs. If you can, support the track this week. They deserve it.

Speaking of PEI there is a nice article on racing there by Dean Hoffman. After the Hambo conference we drove through New England to the east coast and it was beautiful. I highly recommend it. The people are as nice a people you would want to meet.

I see Michael Phelps won another gold. I am pretty sure Somebeachsomewhere could kick his butt in a 200 metre race. He swims too. Dangle a carrot in front of him and Phelps is toast.

The 200 metre IM he won tonight was live with in running betting on betfair and I watched it. The dude was 1.03 with 100 metres to go. I guess a few people thought there was a 3% chance he would drown or something. They showed a this picture of Phelps tonight on NBC. If that is what Olympic athletes look like, now I know why I didn't make the Canadian cycling team, this year. I have some serious work to do.

That's it for now. We'll be back tomorrow with something or another, I'm sure. There seems to be always something going on in our sport.