Saturday Notes

The weekend is here and it's snowing. Yep, snowing. I had heard the polar bears are moving north due to shrinking ice-caps, but I am pretty sure I saw one in the Park this morning. Anyhoo....

The Maryland Jockey Club defends Kegasus. The Preakness campaign with the tubby half horse half dude has been getting some press of late, which is the whole goal of the thing. People that sit upstairs on Preakness Day eating fresh crab while studying pedigrees don't seem to like it, while the kids drinking their faces off in the infield don't seem to mind. Since Kegasus will not be visiting them in the Turf Club, they should just relax.

St. Elmo Hero goes to Woodbine. Tonight is the night he tries to win his 25th in a row. The gelding has been off time with foot issues and some sickness, and Woodbine is some-kinda tricky track, so this does not look like a slam-dunk. Jody Jamieson is no dummy, and he'll be in contention, however, and he seems confident. This makes for one of the more interesting preferred's of the season. Also tonight: The Spring Pacing Championship. Tonight is also a $100k guaranteed pick 4 at the Rexdale oval. 

As usual, with Woodbine: Free Program downloads, and free video, although they do not nearly promote that enough, I find.

Opening Day for the tbred as well in Toronto. This is a long, historic, and very good meet. Living in Toronto since year one of school it was always a big day. Handicappers who were confined to betting the Florida tracks all year began to salivate about a week before the meet. That was 20 years ago and it is not much different today.

Twitter is supposed to be "new". The skewed age is younger, the politics tends to slant left - everything you'd expect. However, I had a laugh this morning when "SkyDome" was trending in Toronto. Everyone knows it is the Rogers Centre and has been for some time, but there it is, trending with the old name. An interesting fact I learned this morning reading the messages -  The McDonald's in SkyDome (Rogers Centre) is the only one in North America to sell hot dogs. I had no idea. They are good hot dogs too. Kind of like the excellent Roast Beef sandwiches you get at Woodbine. I'd have one of those today if I was going to opening day.

Wanna take a harness racing survey? HANA has their second out.

Balmoral Park dropped their pick 4 take last season and started pushing it. The results are very good: In year one, the pools rose 61% and in year two (2011) it's up over 80%. The pool size is getting quite good for a state that has had racing as an entity absolutely battered.

O_crunk hat tips the different mindset between baseball data and horse racing data (i.e. one is embracing it and the other protects it like a mother bear).

Good for Kentucky Confidential getting featured on the Paulick Report. Check the conversation on any piece, on any blog or website, and it will tell you something about the quality of the issue. Some of my favorite people in racing are chatting on that piece.

A couple of people you might want to follow on Twitter (in my opinion)? Tom LaMarra and Dan Needham.

I have no idea what's going on at TVG, but Gary Seibel is out. Gary moderated a panel I was on a few years ago and we got to chatting afterwards. Gary was one of those "this game has to change now, and not do piece-meal things" guys, which I found refreshing. I have no idea which way TVG is going as a business strategy. I have not seen the racing press ask them, nor have I seen them offer out their new vision. Poxes on both houses.