Thursday, February 28, 2008

Charm City

Word has come down from on high that this outfit is moving to Bawlmer, MD in a few months, off for Kate's internship at Johns (don't call me "John") Hopkins University. The whole deal was worked out through one of those match programs, which can be pretty scary, and we were lucky to land our first choice. (Ughhh, I just realized that now I'm like one of those guys that drive me crazy by saying things like, "We're pregnant!" We? Yeah, you're in the corner sucking down Miller Lights and chain smoking Marlboros while your girl is dealing with a kicking bowling ball on her insides and it's "We're pregnant???" Whaaat?)

Anyway, Kate was lucky, straight up, because I would not have moved to some of the other cities in the mix. I mean, I told her that I'd move to Denver, of course, but I was lying and just taking my chances that it wouldn't come to pass. So, I dodged that bullet, which is good because that conversation would have been awkward: "Umm, no, really, I'm just going to stay here and play video games for two years. I have the XBox 360 on order, I swear."

Provided that we can forget every episode of The Wire that we've seen, Bawlmer looks to be a pretty cool spot. We've got family down there (probably already considering relocation now) and it's still fairly close to my folks in NJ and just a plane ticket from Kate's up in Maine. I'm psyched about the food, too. Seafood is top-notch, plus you've got your old school Irish, so you can always get a good corned beef sandwich (and a beer, now that I think of it. No dry town! Yes!). Tracks nearby should do the trick (Pimlico and Laurel) and we're close to Fair Hill. Charles Town, otherwise known as heaven on earth, is much closer.

Job well done by Kate landing the gig. Sure, it bothers me a little bit that she took the time to confirm that questions as to her marital status during the interview process were illegal, but no hard feelings. I'd keep me under wraps, too. We'll see how long she can keep up the facade she's created. If she starts up that she needs to be dating to maintain appearances I might have to say something. Unless the guy takes her to nice restaurants and I get the leftovers. That would be okay.

Back on the racing front to close, man was it cool to see that they bumped the purse of the WV Filly & Mare Classic to $500,000. Holy moly! It had been at $350k, so the $150k bump is really sweet. I told my Dad that my initial thinking is to run Veiled Reference three times a year for the next three years. Go for the $125k this October and then point for the half a mil in 2009 and 2010. At the rate I'm going she'll only get, like, 12 lifetime starts as it is (thank you, thank you very much. We're racing professionals here, don't you forget), so why the hell not just point to those biggies. Half a mil? For West Virginia-breds? I'm seeing my Grandmother tomorrow and the first item on my agenda is squeezing our filly into her prayer rotations. We'll need every edge we can muster up.

Monday, February 25, 2008

still holding

Finally did manage to get a firm diagnosis for Veiled Reference. No, not a foot bruise, I'm afraid, which would have been cool. Instead, she's got the beginnings of what you would call a small shin splint in a human, only it's in her ankle (inside sesamoid), not her leg. All she needs is time, around 30 days, for the bone to recast itself and harden up. Nautical Agent bucked shins as a two-year old before ever racing and did well with the time off, so I'm hopeful that Veiled Reference will take the time in similar fashion and come back nicely. She was due a break, really, having been in training for a long stretch dating back to the spring of 2007, but we were of the mind to have one or two more races before letting her chill out. I feel kind of silly about the whole thing given how January and February played out, but what are you going to do? Thought we might hit up the Busher or one of those overnight stakes at Aqueduct, which we nearly did. Things just didn't break our way. All in all, even though it wasn't ideal to train w/o racing and put on that wear and tear, it was probably a good thing that she never wound up running. Sure, if I had stopped on her after that race in December, I'm a genius, but, man, NY was primed for a raid (did you catch slim pickings in the Busher on Sunday?), so that was the thinking coming out of her last.

Veiled Reference is a May foal and the time off should be good for her to do some maturing. Every horse with talent in her family got better with age, too, which is promising. And though we've only seen her out the three times, she does have some measure of talent with which to work. It will just have to be the few months before we unleash it again on her poor, unsuspecting competition. We'll see how she is in 30 days and schedule things from there.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

all quiet

No news out of Fair Hill today, which I'll take as a good sign because I'm an optimistic person. Tim can probably only take so many phone calls with me crying on the other end, so I didn't hear anything new. Veiled Reference was to go back to the track for another morning of training. I imagine if she were howling in pain afterwards that I would have gotten a phone call.

I managed to track down an old article on-line that covers some of the more common foot ailments and found it a useful read. Actually, I just re-read it and it mainly covers stone bruises, but it's still worth a look. Tim reported that there was no longer a pulse in the hoof (there had been one earlier on) and that's got to be a good thing. She's been trending the right way ever since showing signs of a problem, so I'm of the mind that she did the equivalent of banging a knee. It hurts like hell immediately afterwards, remains tender for the few days and then is usually okay. Maybe she's working through the tenderness stage these days. Do keep in mind that these are the words of a desperate man grasping at straws, but, still, I could be right. Anyway, we'll just keep on with her and see how she fares.

It was great fun watching the seventh today at Laurel, especially that last quarter of a mile in 26 and change. Pletcher's filly wasn't at her best and the early speed just walked the field through the mile. In my mind, Veiled Reference sat right on the leader's flank and had her measured each step of the way, but I guess that one will have to be filed with the host of other fantasies back in my hall of records, right next to the one where the Victoria's Secret models call me up for help with a fitting session. "OMG, I feel so fat! What guy would ever find me attractive?" (That's the part where I clear my throat and swing for the fences.)

Have to get back on to Doug, but I think we'll probably x-ray Nautical Agent next week. She's busy feasting on cookies morning, noon and night down in Colts Neck and looks to be loving life these days. If all well, there might be plans in the mix to breed her later in the season.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

so sensitive

Proof that there's no stopping the momentum we've got cooking around here, it's a bummer to share that we'll have to scratch Veiled Reference from tomorrow's seventh at Laurel. I didn't even post about entering her because I would have been so sad to then pull the rug out from underneath everybody (not that I've let that stop me in the past), but, sure enough, here we all are, crying at our keyboards and wondering when the sun will break through and end what's been a dark, cold winter.

Veiled Reference has something cooking with her foot, maybe an abscess or stone bruise (my guess), which both happen from time to time. The probability of either ailment has likely been higher over the past few weeks with the mix of hot/cold temperatures and bit of rain that we've had. Hooves are plenty resilient, but sometimes weather patterns like what we've had recently can help cause minor ailments that typically require a little TLC and some time. The hope is to get a solid diagnosis one way or the other in the next few days, help her with the recovery and reload in 2-3 weeks if all well. Meanwhile, I'll just lean on the balance of the empire to sustain the operation through the delay. Oh, wait a second. Cancel that order for the leg of lamb. It's PB&J through Easter, baby.

Monday, February 11, 2008

stay in school

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that my number came up to sit on the jury for what was scheduled to be a seven-day trial for some kind of armed robbery (with a hammer!). Out of 55 in the pool, yours truly was drafted with around the tenth pick and instructed to sit in seat one of the jury box. Yes! So, I scamper on up there and get ready for a few questions from the judge, a slightly angry (only a touch), middle-aged white woman, to see if I'm fit to serve. The nine prior to me to get bounced from the hot seat were tossed for a number of reasons, including: student status (no-brainer), loss of income (tougher sell, judge excused some, but not all of these cases), mental illness (probably what I should have gone with), police-lovers (judge would not excuse, but defense always bounced) and poor grasp of the English language (my favorite, especially after having the one guy, who claimed that he didn't speak a lick of English, debating the finer points of the Mets' Santana signing with another dude out in the hallway only minutes before - high comedy).

After establishing that I'm a US citizen, speak the language and don't know the punk that jacked the Quick Check, she asks if there are any other items on the 27 point checklist that might pose a problem. I tell her that number 25, which asks if I would be able to follow the judge's directions without factoring in my own personal beliefs, has, "given me pause, as I'm concerned that it might, ummm, abrogate my right to act on my conscience." For that whole last part of my response, I was thinking, "did I just use the word 'abrogate?' I've never used it before in my life, I'm pretty sure. Was that even a proper usage?" So, while I'm thinking on that, she snaps her head to look at me and says, loudly, "What?!?", at which point I am quickly consumed with fear ("What the f did I just do?") and a little bit of panic. I do, though, manage to mumble something like, "you know, jury nullification," to which she responds, "Please explain."

Now, I know that she's just testing me, so even though I'm a little nervous, what with the three sheriff guys behind me with guns, plus the 75+ in the room, at least I know that the floor is mine, which is somewhat comforting. So, I kind of shrug my shoulders and answer: "I just want to, uhhh, make sure that I preserve my right to, uhhh, act on my conscience both as it relates to the facts of the case, as well as, you know, any applicable law, that's all. And by not raising that issue with you now, I feel like I might be conceding that right." "So," she says, "you want to be able to act on your conscience?" "Yes," I answer. "Are you comfortable, if the facts suggest to be the case, with finding the defendant guilty?" "Yes," I respond. "Could you similarly find the defendant not guilty?", she asks. "Sure." "Okay, good. Is there anything else?", she asks, which makes me kind of nervous that she's gonna seat my ass and leave me to hold out that the prosecutor tosses me (which is guaranteed, but I'm not sure he has any more boots left). So, I flip the questionnaire to the first page and say, "Only one other thing, your honor: I'm self-employed." And, I swear, maybe 2/5ths of a second after the words were out of my mouth, she spits out, "Excused!" and I'm out of there. Unlike the other poor SOBs that claimed job issues and had to do the hand-to-mouth thing and 'how am I gonna pay the rent', she bounced me so fast I didn't even have a chance to get my crocodile tears flowing: "You don't understand, your honor: I just scratch a filly out of two races. Her friend, she just hurta her leg, no more race. Plus, they eat so much." Gradually, my English would have gotten worse and worse to the point that my next bullet would have been claiming an inability to grasp the language...Anyway, it never came to that, so I grabbed my bag and hightailed it out of there, leaving the wheels of justice to roll on w/o me.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

plan g

We're officially on fire in the entry box, demonstrating an uncanny ability to stop prospective race offerings stone cold. The colt race at Laurel was brought back at 3/4ths of a mile, as opposed to the 1m 1/16, so that was the end of that one. Today we knocked off the x2 for fillies, which was brought back at 1m 1/16, a 1/16th of a mile shorter than the 1m 1/8 in the book. We wanted the extra ground and there's a softer spot at a mile only a week later, so Veiled Reference will chill the extra few days and look to have a go on the 20th. The one turn mile is lame, yeah, but it should still be a fairly okay spot, unless Tagg/Motion/Trombetta all fish something up for the affair. Outside draw is the hope (remember the inside trip in debut?). I imagine she'll work once or twice between now and then.

Lucky me, I've got jury duty tomorrow morning. Maybe a few words on jury nullification will cut my day short. See, I wasn't always sleeping during those Poli Sci classes at Rutgers back in the day. Besides, knowing that I'd likely someday face a jury of my peers was reason enough to pay attention for that one. If you see reports tomorrow night of me being led off in handcuffs shouting, "It was a victimless crime! The law is no good!," please contact someone from my family. I'm much too soft for an extended stay in the big house.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

eeek

NYRA might have profiled the wrong filly for that race at Aqueduct tomorrow. Umm, sorry? We'll come back soon enough, I promise.

Without getting into the details, this being a public forum and all, it looks like we won't even be running at Charles Town tomorrow, which had been the plan. The filly is perfectly fine, but administrative issues associated with her foal papers have left her ineligible to run on the day. Too boring to get into, really. The folks down in West Virginia can keep walking all over my heart, but we'll always be BFF. I'm a masochist like that.

Plan D is one of two spots at Laurel later next week. One against boys on Thursday, the other versus fillies that have knocked off the x1 allowance condition (in the book for Friday). Whatever. I'll take a field of wild donkeys at this point with bags of salted peanuts as the purse. She needs to race and she can hang with anyone that would go in those two races, so hopefully one of them fills. Ladies and gentlemen: the T Street Empire!

hold

I'm sending Veiled Reference back down to Charles Town, taking a pass on the overnight stakes at Aqueduct. She drew poorly in that race (7 out of 8 with a short run to first turn) and the race in general just doesn't shape up to my liking. Two fillies, La Porta, the likely favorite, and Wonderwho'sbest, Levine's filly, did enter back from the Busanda, which I wasn't really counting on. Both have room to move forward from their last, draw better and hold a seasoning edge. Plus, Servis ships in with a filly that also holds an experience edge on our girl and looks to be coming into the race in good form. We fit in the race (4-1 morning line) and Veiled Reference certainly stacks up with any of the fillies in there, but to have the go would be a very aggressive play and I think it's a little early in her overall development for that kind of move. Aggressive would have been fine, but too many things add up to suggest that we can do this kind of thing a little further on down the line.

So, she'll go down to Charles Town and square off with that filly that nosed her out last time in the WV-bred stakes. I told Tim that whether she's on the lead or sitting just off of it, I'd really like to see her settle better than she did last time. She'll be sure to see plenty of inferior speed in future starts going longer, so she needs to know how to idle that engine of hers, chill and go when the jock gives word. Hopefully, she can work on that tomorrow. Race will go off at around 3:45. You can watch it on-line here. Sorry to disappoint those waiting on the survey monkey link to weigh in on the matter. Just think of me as your favorite, cuddly, horse dictator, working hard to keep the masses down.