There I was at work, at a lunchtime meeting, hanging out with my new colleagues and eating pizza. The topic was “where do you live” and one of my colleagues said “Long Branch (NJ), but I’ve got to get out of town this weekend because it’s going to be a mad house…” My eyes light up and I sat up straight, we said in unison “because of the Breeders’ Cup.” Then he looked at me like ‘how would you know that?’. I quickly and happily replied “I’ll be there! That’s why I’m talking Thursday and Friday off.”

After some group BC chit chat my Long Branch colleague said “Someone rented the entire hotel in my neighborhood… one person, the entire hotel. Some Arab royalty or something. I guess he has a horse running.” You could say that… I wonder if the brothers share a hotel or if they each get their own?

My boss then told us the entire plot of Black Stallion as it was his favorite movie as a kid and he watched it too many times to count. All and all it was a great meeting!

As others have mentioned, Oprah Winney was featured on Oprah Winfrey today. It was a very sweet segment, very touching… as a fan it made me want to route for her (although as a handicapper I really like Miss Macy Sue as the value play).

Post Parade points out Oprah’s reach and what we stand to gain from this superb mainstream media coup. Seriously, whoever pulled this off should be commended!

The whole thing is genius, not only in terms of scoring precious Breeders’ Cup press, but also in terms of creating some alliance or affinity to a celebrity which in turn gets access to their audience or fan base. Other sports have many fans who don’t know much about the sport but have “their team”, why shouldn’t we do that?

There are plenty of other celebrities to name horses after:

Madonna – she’s a horse lover with a loyal following. She hates the names Material Girl & Boy Toy… why not name a horse after her next tour, she would!

David Letterman – he would be great! You know he would have plenty of funny segments following the horse. Tom Durkin could be a guest… potential horse names: Larry Bud, Super Dave, Top Ten, Stupid Human Tricks.

Jay Leno – he loves cars, why not horses… the original horse power. Potential horse name: Jaywalking.

John Stewart – like Letterman I can imagine him having fun with it, potential horse name: The Daily Show!

You can see the segment about Oprah Winney here, but what I’d really love to see is how Oprah herself set it up and what she said afterwards. I’m suuuure she touted the Breeders’ Cup and ESPN. It will be interesting to see if we get a nice spike in ratings or if Oprah Winney is bet down. Hopefully this is just the beginning of our industry figuring out how to get some play in the mainstream media!

Update: from the BC site:

“The producer of her show called me and said ‘Oprah told me about your horse’s story, we’d like to interview you for a piece we’re doing,'” Dubb recalls. He said he had secretly wondered if the real Oprah knew about Oprah the horse.

So, it wasn’t some well orchestrated plan to plan to get BC coverage, however getting “human (horse) interest stories in the mainstream media is certainly one of many ways to help generate new fans.

Swifty is an excellent uncle. He really loves hanging out with this nephews and has brought 2 of them to the track. On Belmont Stakes day we were joined by Mrs. Swifty, Ma & Pa Swifty and his nephew Nate.

On his birthday this year, we took a big fun group of folks to Belmont, among that big fun group was his nephew Ted. Ted is probably in 5th or 6th grade (Swifty, how old is he?). The day before our outting Swifty showed Ted the basics of handicapping… he got it right away and was into it.

He always lets his family know when he’s going to the track or the “the office” in case they want him to place a wager for them. Ok, Swifty is an excellent family member, not just an excellent Uncle. Last night he forwards me this email, subject “Help from Ted”. He had asked to Ted to send him his thoughts on the Juvenile & Classic.

Hey Adam, how you doing. Long Time No See

Well, about the two races

For the Juvenile: My favorite is Smarty Deb, he has a good dirt record and he one of the few horses that have raced this distance before so I have good hopes for her.

And for the Classic: My favorite would have to be Curlin, of course, he is a great horse and has a great dirt record. Also, he has raced this distance before.

I hope I made good choices!

PS: Guess what I just got……Braces! We’ll send a picture to you later!

Thanks for letting me help! Hope you win!!!

Love,

Ted

It’s a tough call between Ted using distance and surface to make his choices or the fact that he just got braces as my favorite part. Too bad he’s not coming with us! Next time.

Picking winners at Belmont

I love thinking about all the horseplayers totally geeking out over the BC advanced PPs. All of the spreadsheets, calculations, home grown figs and wacky stats warm my heart. I was unsuccessfully chasing the various Pick 6 carryovers from Sunday to Wednesday so I gave myself a few days off to be fresh for the task. I’m a procrastinator at heart, most of my uncharacteristic cleaning spells are the direct product of procrastination. This morning I was even thinking of rearranging my room!

I suppose I’m postponing starting the long glorious journey through 141 horses lifetime past performances in part because I don’t want it to be over. I have to remind myself that it’s not like other sports where after the big finale there are no more games until the next season.

I’ve been putting off so many things and conveniently saying “I’ll do it after the BC” but now that I’ve been putting off handicapping I’ve gotten a number of things done! I was an errand running machine after work and have finally gotten around to upgrading a number of gadgets (cellphone, point and shoot digital camera… risky during mercury retrograde, I know). Of course, both of those were really related to the BC, potential blogging from the BC on the new PDA and a few shots here and there with the new camera.

I’ve been busy at work, but an enjoyable and relaxed busy… however, i can’t blog from work and I can’t spend too much time keeping up on news/blogs. A couple of items from my new esteemed colleagues yesterday kept me chuckling all day… I got a fantastic and hilarious drunk warm welcome from suebroux at Post Parade and Superfecta has a chuckle worthy and spot on post about our favorite snake charmer.

I decided not the play the New York Showcase, which I found about from Jeff @ the Chalk… NYRA’s lack of marketing never ceases to amaze me. I knew about the Maryland Millions the week before! I left my standard issue NYRA/marketing rant comment. The only thing I really have to do tomorrow is take the only canine resident of the Home Zoo in a for a follow-up visit, but the vet is literally right downstairs. Other than that, I will be down the handicapping rabbit hole, but no doubt popping out now and again for a procrastination post here and there.

Hope you’re having fun!!

Breeders’ Cup Distaff Contender Unbridled Belle (Sarah K. Andrew)

From NY Post Page 6:

Former gossip columnist Mitchell Fink is producing and hosting “Heads-Up Handicapping,” a new weekly horse-racing show for the NYC Off-Track Betting channel debuting Saturday.

This sounds like an excellent addition to the line-up which also includes Out of the Gate, Replays of the previous days races, and another show hosted by a woman who’s name I can’t remember (and it’s not on the schedule). No TVG on Time Warner Cable in Manhattan, but I’m not complaining… I really love channel 71. In fact, I have it on now with the volume down!

What? Mac’s new operating system, Leopard, ships on Friday October 26th… the same day The Leopard is running in the BC Juvenile Turf. Does anyone have any connections at Apple? They should sponsor the race!

30% of my readers use OS X, while that’s not a gigantic amount of people, as far as percentages go that’s not bad. It would be a great publicity stunt and possibly bring some geeky attention to the BC that might not otherwise have noticed. Show a bunch of geeks how to handicap and you definitely convert some fans, that’s how I got involved (that story coming someday soon).

I’m looking over the PPs for Wednesday’s Pick 6 carryover at Santa Anita, I had no idea the workout style was so different… there’s barely a breezing work out to be seen! It’s mostly handy works with a stray breeze here and there. A very different approach than the east coast trainers. I’d love to hear any insight anyone has on the difference in approaches, the upshots and drawbacks of each, etc.

Guts, nee Nutzapper, is running in the 5th! The best part is that after his first race (the best of his races and at the distance) it says “Formerly Raced as Nutzapper” where it would normally say “Formerly Trained by”.

Hello googlers…

There are several upcoming screenings of the incredible film The First Saturday in May. Hopefully there’s one in your area.

Austin Film Festival – 10/11 – 10/18

Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival – 10/19 – 10/28

Savannah Film Festival 10/27 – 11/03

Two River Film Festival, Monmouth University, NJ – 11/02 – 11/04

St. Louis International Film Festival – 11/08 – 11/18

Cuclorus Film Festival, Wilmington NC – 11/07 – 11/10

I’ve mentioned the film here and here, but if you haven’t heard of it, The Hennegan Brothers have put together an insightful and exciting documentary on how horses get to the Derby aimed at getting the casual fan more involved in the sport.

I hope you get the chance to see it!