Monday Head Scratchers & Other Notes

A few random thoughts today, if you're interested to read:

Hulk Hogan has a reality show about little people who wrestle. How in heavens name can't horse racing get on TV?

Someone at Betfair wants to bet $5 at 29-1 on Algorithms to win the Derby. I think that $5 will be taken in about two minutes.

Union Rags goes to 4-1 on the exchange with limited volume.

Demonizing your opponent as a right wing nut (Bush), some sort of "foreigner" (Obama) or, shudders, a private equity guy (Romney) works well. Apparently it works well with horse racing too. The Ontario Liberal Party have started running ads demonizing horse racing.

Scott looks at the "it's a great idea if I get some of the money" part of our sport with betting exchanges.

The Speed figure came out for Union Rags' Fountain of Youth win today and some naysayers started forming a line. "Not fast enough". What would they like, a 121 like Quality Road ran a couple of years ago? Those horses rarely last, and this was, after all, a prep race. If Usain Bolt won a pre-Olympic prep in 10 flat, everyone would say "right on target".

Japan is going to let racetracks set their own takeout because business is not very good. Immediately I thought this was good news, because if they lower it they might be able to jumpstart interest in their product. Then I realized they are likely to increase it.

How messed up is racing? One alphabet backs off on 2 year olds and the ban of lasix, but the Breeders Cup keeps it.

Some dandy stuff in HRU about heats and the Hambo. Ray Schnittker makes a lot of sense on this.

Twitter is super-interesting for this sport. The participants in racing tweet their own thoughts time and time again and it's fascinating to watch. Goatzapper listed twitter reaction yesterday in the Fountain of Youth. Bob Baffert said "wow" and Julien Leparoux was pumped. It's really cool to see real time reaction to events from participants.

It was a really weird day for Javier Castellano yesterday. Recently he chose Algorithms for his Derby run over Union Rags. Algorithms scratches in the morning, and Rags wins the buzz in the afternoon. Ouch.

Have a great day everyone!