in Whole Foods this week is about as close as I’ve come to doing anything racing related.

I’ll be watching the Sunshine Millions but not playing due to extreme work load. This gives me an opportunity to try out one of my only racing “resolutions”, which is to stop or at least cut down on sentimental wagers that don’t involve any handicapping.

However, if I were to do any handicap-free sentimental wagering this weekend, I might go for Bayou’s Lassie in the Distaff with a token straight exacta of Ginger Punch over Prop Me Up. That’s it really, not a lot of sentimental favorites running this weekend and definitely no time to handicap.

In the meantime, go to the TBA homepage and grab all the past performances for the Sunshine Millions. Just because I can’t handicap doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!

Corey Nakatani at Belmont (Sarah K. Andrew)

According to DRF, Corey Nakatani took a spill during a morning work Saturday at Hollywood Park and broke a collar bone. He’ll be out for undetermined period of time. Sadly, Bouweizase, the unraced filly had to be euthanized.

Best of luck for a speedy recovery.

Greg at Power Cap has a template you can copy and paste to write to your representatives in the New York State Assembly and Senate. The issue is that the NYRA signal is being blocked to New York Residents using ADW sites such as youbet.com or Twinspires.

As Greg points out, it seems like a move to force bettors to either go to an OTB or watch the OTB channel, however, not all New Yorkers are lucky enough to have access to an OTB or an OTB channel (the most fabulous thing on TV if you ask me).

Please help your OTB channel-less fellow New Yorkers, go here, find your representatives and let them know how you feel!

Although he’s Kentucky bred, you’d think Evening Attire was a Native New Yorker the way New York crowds love him.

Teresa at Brooklyn Backstretch has 2 posts about her day at the Big A to watch Evening Attire… one specifically about Evening Attire while the other is a more about The Big A experience in general (and a great read!).

Greg at Power Cap also has a nice write up about his trip to see the old man. At the end of his post he links to an excellent Evening Attire Fan Site that that I’ve included in my new link category, Fan Sites.

I thought Evening Attire looked great and ran game second. As Teresa points out, it really wasn’t enough distance for him. His next outing will be at 1 1/8 mile, so look out you rotten kids!

I just noticed something about the race replay graphic on the OTB channel… it looks like Funny Cide and Evening Attire!

For those of you who don’t live in NYC and/or don’t ever get a chance to see the signal from NYRA tracks, there’s a little transition graphic used for race replays that has a 3ish second close up clip of two horses. I guess since I was just looking at pics of Evening Attire his mask jumped out at me and then I noticed that the other jock looked to be wearing the Sackatoga Stables silks.

I believe the clip is from the 2004 Excelsior Breeders Cup Handicap at Aqueduct. The placement of the two is right on and Funny Cide was number 3… the only other distinguishing thing in the clip is that the horse with rider wearing the Sakatoga-ish silks is number 3. Of course it would make sense that they pick a clip of a high profile race from Aqueduct as well. I’ll have to see if I can figure out the Belmont & Saratoga replay clips when the time comes.

This up tick in posting brought to you by none other than procrastination!

Don’t ask me how I found this item, but as it turns out Christina Ricci likes to play the ponies! Apparently a trip to Australia was all the young starlet needed to “learn to love playing the ponies”. Maybe we oughta send more people to Australia.

“I have no strategy (with horses) and I never pick winners,” she says. “But it’s still fun.”

That’s the spirit! Here’s to hoping she learns how to read The Form and turns into a lifelong fan!

Patrick concludes his two part interview series with a conversation with Riley Mott, Bill Mott’s son. No comments from Bill but it’s a nice interview and great to see how involved and interested he is. It’s clear he’s picked up a LOT by his running commentary in the Facebook Derby group, and you thought Facebook was just good for turning people into Zombies and taking quizzes!

Fun Facts:

Riley Tucker, promising 3yo owned by Zayat Stables, was named for Riley

Bill Mott – not so keen on the email but loves to txt!

Evening Attire and Edgar Prado enter the track at Belmont with onlookers in Evening Attire (Holly Van Voast)

Best of luck to Evening Attire tomorrow!

Here’s his last out, schoolin’ youngsters in the Queens County Handicap, what you don’t see in this replay is that Evening Attire was running around like a nut in the parade. Every shot of every horse had Evening Attire streaking by in the background.

Go get ’em old man!

All those big owners and trainers don’t read blogs, let alone comment on them… get thee over to Handride and check out this post!

Those of you on Facebook who belong to the Kentucky Derby group are by now well acquainted with Justin Zayat and Riley Mott, the 15-ish year old sons of Ahmed Zayat and Bill Mott. Both Justin and Riley are an interesting mix of typical 15 year old boy and seasoned, knowledgeable pros. It’s great fun to see them do dead on analysis of a horse’s abilities or what their next move should be while throwing in an occasional “Zayat/Mott dynastyyy!” shout out or “monsterrr”.

In my estimation it’s always a great sign for the future of something when young people take to it, and we all know horse racing is just a bit more involved than most extracurricular activities, to say the least. No doubt being in the industry helps immensely but there’s never a guarantee that a child becomes interested in and/or takes to the family business.

And just a note to all you big trainers, owners, publishers, writers, jockeys and handicapping gods that no doubt read GbG daily… don’t be shy, leave a comment!

Hesanoldsalt and Eibar Coa win in the rain at Saratoga 2006. (Sarah K. Andrew)

I just sat down to catch up on some news when this sad item awaited me in my RSS reader.

Apparently he reared up, got away from his handler and took off only to crash into a tree when someone tried to stop him. The full story is at Bloodhorse.

“He looked great when he came in,” said Zito. “He was gonna have a good year. It’s sad, and when I think of all the good memories we had with him, it’s just incredible. I loved that horse. He was a wonderful, wonderful addition to our barn.”

Here he is running a very game second to Corinthian in the Gulfstream Handicap last year. With a touch more distance it looks like he could have done it…

Rest in Peace.