Hello everyone, I hope the week is treating you all very well.
I was feeling a little nostalgic today. If you're interested I will share my thoughts on a couple of items.
First, for the thousands and thousands of new racefans who read my blog (many from Russian link farms), let me tell you a tale about a gate break.
It was many years ago now at Santa Anita (I doubt you'd find any even grainy footage on Youtube), and there was a horse named Bayern.
Out of the gate, the story goes, he veered wildly and slammed into several horses. Two of the horses, again as told by old timers, jumped into the infield and had to be caught by outriders. One horse, owned by a media mogul, was slammed so hard he got down to the quarter in an estimated 37.3 (hard to tell, racing wasn't in-tune with runups way back then). One of the horses with an open bridle that could see it all coming, said "frig this" didn't even leave the gate, and headed back to his stall for a drink.
Bayern was crowned the winner.
Meanwhile in the same jurisdiction on Saturday, this happened. I won't elaborate on the commentary that's already been assembled in virtually all corners of this sport, but truly it is one of the most bizarre rulings I think I've ever seen.
Over in harness racing land, here's another old timer story.
"What post you got for Saturday?"
"Post one"
"How do you feel about post two?"
"It's pretty good"
Now it's all changed. Everything is a draw.
"How do you feel about the inside draw, what draw did you get, this horse drew outside, that draw was bad."
Maybe this is what the MAGA guys get excited about when it comes to globalization. Maybe it's Dexter Dunn's fault. Or Andrew McCarthy, or his brother (aka the rightful driver of this year's Big M Pace champ). Blame it on the Kiwis and Aussies.
Regardless, let's all call draws post positions again. I'll even make up a catchy phrase - LACDPPA - and print red hats if I have to. Please make it so.
Speaking of draws posts, another old time harness racing truth is under assault - and I don't have the foggiest idea how it got narratived so fast - the rail post at Mohawk and the Meadowlands is a "bad draw".
This is all over the harness press; analysts ask questions about it. Some drivers even talk about it now.
The thinking seems to be that the turn comes up too fast and it's crippling. Weird, because you know where the turn comes up really fast? Yonkers. You know what post you want at Yonkers? Post one.
The difference of course is that at Yonkers, drivers push out from the rail to use it as an advantage, whereby at Mohawk (maybe from reading the press, I honestly don't know) drivers outside probably JJ and Louis Roy don't push out from the rail.
You know when drawing the wood sucks? When you don't push out because you have your head looking right to let five horses in front of you. Then it sucks bad.
I'm a degen bettor, so what do I know, but I had a chuckle a couple of weeks ago.
Driver Yannick Gingras was being asked about having post one with a trotter in an upcoming race, and if he was "worried about his 'inside draw' because it was so "tricky". He looked a little surprised at the question, politely said no he wasn't worried about it and that he'll probably push out like you have to from there. He said post one was "fine".
I guess he doesn't read the internet.
There's my old time whip around racing, where gate breaks were part of the game, draws were called posts, and the rail in harness racing wasn't horrible.
Have a super day everyone!
