Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Tuesday Notes

Here's today's pop quiz:

Which of the following is true?

a) A top sprinter tests positive in an Olympic Trial race for steroids, appeals, and is still favorite for the London Olympics 100m, where he races and wins.

b) A School Bus driver gets his second 12 hour suspension for drinking, found with an open bottle of Jack Daniels under seat of school bus while driving toddlers to kindergarten. While waiting for a trial, the school board and parents groups allow him to continue drive children to school.

c) Tour de France leader gets caught swapping his blood with a cow's in his trailer before the seventh stage. He appeals, and Tournament organizers allow him to finish the race. He wins by 84 minutes, in a record time.

d) Florida doctor gets arrested for distributing Oxy pills to people with a small scrape on their finger. Drugs turn up on streets at $30 a pill. Doctor allowed to prescribe pain killers while awaiting trial.

e) Horse Trainer is caught with positive test for a drug 40X more powerful than morphine that endangers horses, riders, the betting public, and sullies a $100B+ industry. While under appeal, the trainer is allowed to race, work with horses, and earn money.

Answer later.

Cangamble slices and dices a Watchmaker DRF article, regarding the fact that horse racings demo is "old". He's not a statistician, or a marketer, but he writes an article worthy of it. He describes "funnels" quite well, I thought.

Word via twitter is that Warrawee Needy and Hurrikane Kingcole both scoped sick last weekend. If this was an NFL injury report, I guess we could card them both as "questionable" for this weeks Meadowlands Pace.

 I love it that Hansen raced in Iowa for the Iowa Derby and is now off to Mountaineer for the West Virginia Derby. This is a really popular horse, and the owner wants to win races and bring him around to some races the big colts rarely go to. So what if he wants to go to places like this, rather than all the big Grade Is. If it affects his stud value, the owner doesn't seem to care.

There has been a lot of talk about the history of drugs in the sport of late. O_crunk tweeted this out today.
I get the same feeling when I read a lot of these pieces.

I'm out in Eastern Canada at the moment and on the weekend I went to a restaurant for some takeout. While there, I noticed the placemats had reprinted stories from the small local paper, from yesteryear and I began reading. The big story on one side of the mat was about the large hurricane that hit the area in the 1950's. In the corner of the front page, was a snippet on the harness races that day, at a small now-closed track. During the hurricane, the horsemen raced the first six races, but then the wind, the track and the weather got too bad, so they had to stop at race 6. Yes, that's about right: Racing for about $50, in a hurricane, and they were probably pissed they had to cancel before the 9th. That's old time harness racing.

Answer to the pop quiz: I suspect it's e)

Enjoy your day everyone.



1 comment:

Equinometry said...

For once a horse is being managed properly. Hansen is not going to win the Haskell or Travers as he is not a G1 horse at 9 or 10 furlongs. He can cherry pick the "other" Derbies and in the process accrue significant earnings. Five years from now no one will remember the details of his career. He will be advertised as a G1 winner of $2+ million. If the connections want a G1 win they should run him in the King's Bishop off the turnback.

Lenny

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