Saturday Notes

Woodbine racing forecast for today - windy, cold, windy, grey. I can almost "see the track from my house" and I doubt there will be too many people sitting outside.

Hopefully it clears up a bit for the night card, where bettors are again taking a poke at the $100k guarantee. It's a good card this evening (free program here). Late in the card, St. Elmo Hero has a stern test tonight with a fairly good field of preferred horses. He should win, but like last week, he might have to be good to do so.

Christie and Gural (strange political bedfellows, if you watched the O'Reilly Factor last Thursday) both seem to agree the Meadowlands has little shot to open May 7th, after the tellers failed to approve the contract. Are you at all like me with political decisions? If a guy like Gural and a guy like Christie are agreeing on something, chances are it's truth, and they are on the right side of the issue.

Hastings Park is up and going for their new meet. 15% WPS take and free past performances for the season (on their website)! That's the way to do it.

Equidaily has the photographic evidence of the super bad beat at GP on Thursday.

Tom Walters, owner of Santiva, the fave for the Blue Grass today at Keeneland:

"Obviously, everyone would love to run in the Kentucky Derby. That's a dream," Walters said. "But the most important thing we want to do is to do what is right for the horse.

The objective for him was never the Kentucky Derby. The objective for him is to have him around this summer, this fall and as a 4-year-old because we think he's going to be a better 4-year-old than he is now."

Full story.

I honestly do not know why more owners are not like this. I think we can ring off a ton of names who could have had excellent second-halves, and made more cash for their stud career than they did.

I like the horse in the race today (although it looks like no value).

For the second big one today, the Arkansas Derby, the pace looks hot. If the Factor wins this off a fast pace, he deserves every accolade he has received. If Sway Away isn't there at the end I would be pretty surprised.

Good luck today folks!