The Whip Around Racing

Some interesting tidbits in the sport for Thursday.

Thanks to The Paulick Report, we see a potential claiming out of spite story in the soap opera that is Dick Dutrow. We all know Dutrow had some brave words for Contessa earlier this summer. When the claim box opened for a recent race which had Dutrow's "favourite horse", Contessa went and claimed him. As the Trainer Turns.

Equidaily had a neat link on a history of racing blog relating to the 1913 opening of Belmont. It is amazing that there was no wagering back then. The masses who ran racing seemed to think that they could run brown horses in a circle, ignore betting and the sport would grow. Some might say that almost 100 years later things have not changed much.

The Jug is near and WEG's Mike Hamilton is making the trip. he has a funny post about it up at WEG's columnist site.

We have spoken a few times about blogging and how it is changing things in this sport, and elsewhere. It is an amazing phenomenon. On political blogs, I think it might have to be regulated one day. We will have to have an entry page where a person has to answer an IQ test question to get in. This is no more apparent than in the Presidential race in the states. Matt Damon said this a couple of days ago: "I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. That's important.. I want to know that, I really do. Because she's going to have the nuclear codes. I want to know if she thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago." It turns out that the quote about dinosaurs that the VP candidate apparently said, was made up by a blogger. The full fake quote that got Matt's underwear in a bunch is this: "God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats."

I guess it found Matt's inbox, somehow, and he actually believed someone could have said that. We clearly have to either regulate blogging, or not let celebrities speak of anything other than where the hot parties are in LA. It's too bad, because I had much more faith in Matt after watching him slay those mean-ass mathematical Harvardites in Good Will Hunting.

The poll is out and most folks (so far) think that Dewey will bounce back in the CTC. With rake added, he is about 3-5 odds from the ten hole, against a horse with the three post who beat him last time. This is a good illustration that value can be had from time to time in racing.