{"id":380,"date":"2012-06-10T17:39:16","date_gmt":"2012-06-10T21:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=380"},"modified":"2012-06-10T21:43:11","modified_gmt":"2012-06-11T01:43:11","slug":"380","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/?p=380","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

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The abruptly announced news Friday that I\u2019ll Have Another had a sore leg and wouldn\u2019t attempt to win horse racing\u2019s Triple Crown turned Saturday\u2019s Belmont Stakes into a more ordinary event.<\/p>\n

It was still fun seeing 85-thousand people fill the old main plant in Elmont, NY to cheer the runners who contested thirteen races on the card.\u00a0 But it would have been extraordinary seeing Another have a chance at another, and the first Crown since 1978.\u00a0 Who knows how it would have turned out had Another run in good health.\u00a0 One could guess that he would have fared well against the eventual Belmont winner Union Rags (pictured above on the rail – just before slipping through a hole left by rival Paynter w\/tourquoise saddlecloth).<\/p>\n

The injury that prompted I\u2019ll Have Another\u2019s trainer Doug O\u2019Neill and owner Paul Reddam to retire the colt isn\u2019t permanently debilitating.\u00a0 The timing of it was bad, of course, but O\u2019Neill\u2019s methodical effort to make things comfortable for the horse during the crown run was evident from the trainer\u2019s strategy to get Another settled into barns at Pimlico and Belmont as early as practical.<\/p>\n

The care and preparation for Another by the O\u2019Neill team appeared to be top-notch, but two big racing efforts in five weeks can reveal wear and tear on a racehorse at any time.\u00a0 In this case, a leg tendon flared up after successive routine morning jogs.\u00a0 It happens.\u00a0 In horse racing, it happens a lot.<\/p>\n

If we ever do end up getting a triple crown winner after such a long drought, it\u2019ll be a three-year-old thoroughbred that combines a freakish combination of sturdiness, stamina and speed.\u00a0 The fact that we\u2019ve come tantalizingly close to a crown with some frequency over the last fifteen years gives one hope it\u2019ll happen eventually.\u00a0 Talk of changing the crown\u2019s format is fine but it\u2019ll cease to be a Triple Crown if and when the spacing between races, field size maximums or race distances are altered to make it easier.<\/p>\n

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The excitement of I\u2019ll Have Another\u2019s three week stay in New York to prepare for the crown coincided with a swirl of tumult around the state\u2019s long and storied stewardship of a great sport in decline.\u00a0 An infusion of slot machine cash from the new casino at Aqueduct was believed to be a savior of sorts but has instead produced a flurry of posturing and scapegoating by a state government bureaucracy that now seems bent on imposing\u00a0wide control\u00a0over the business of New York\u2019s three thoroughbred facilities.\u00a0 Governor Cuomo has run out New York\u2019s existing oversight entity to make way for political appointees who likely will consider opportunities to divert an even greater cut of slots cash away from racing.\u00a0 Short-term at least, New York racing oversight and administration is in disarray.\u00a0 There was the ham-handed implementation of a \u201cdetention barn\u201d before the Belmont Stakes that was roundly criticized by those with horses in the race.\u00a0 A much-publicized giveaway of foam insulators for beer cans was scrapped on the day of the promotion Friday when NYRA said it had failed to receive the product in time.\u00a0 And then, when I\u2019ll Have Another scratched from the race, there was an announcement from NYRA that the same injured horse would be asked to lead the Belmont Stakes post parade as some sort of consolation for the fans who wanted to see him.\u00a0 To deflect criticism of this cockamamie idea, NYRA asked the respected track vet Larry Bramlage to issue a statement asserting Another faced no risk of further tendon damage from participating in the ceremonial duties.\u00a0 When it finally dawned on NYRA that trotting I\u2019ll Have Another out to the racetrack before a crowd that included people already confused by what happened a day earlier, the idea was scrapped.\u00a0 Instead, Another was taken out of his barn during Saturday afternoon’s hoopla\u00a0and did a few laps in the paddock.\u00a0 He jets back to his home base in California this week.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because Belmont expected 100-thousand people to show up Saturday (until Friday\u2019s withdrawal by Another), the facility was well-prepared for the 85-thousand who ended up turning out.\u00a0 The line for the women\u2019s washroom was the biggest complaint I heard.\u00a0 It\u2019s ridiculous this remains an annual problem but making a bet and getting a refreshment wasn\u2019t a problem.<\/p>\n

It was $10 for a 16-ounce can of Budweiser.\u00a0 That\u2019s serious gouging by NYRA but at least you could get\u00a0another when you told yourself that I’ll Have Another.<\/p>\n

I played the pick four and got knocked out in leg two.\u00a0 I deviated from my usual strategy of spreading as deep as possible, opting instead to limit combinations so that I could multiply the $1 payoff by three should Union Rags win (twice if Dullhan won).\u00a0 The fast Kentucky Derby pace-setter Trinniberg foiled my play when he wired a field of ten in the grade two Woody Stephens.\u00a0 My decision to not include Trinniberg in the wager had become a source of lengthy consideration but I ultimately decided that his Derby effort five weeks earlier would take the starch out of him in this spot.\u00a0 I should have let his two quick post-Derby workouts guide my decision, I guess.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n

The failure of my sizable pick four wager left me with no action on the Belmont Stakes and another losing day at the race track.<\/p>\n

We bolted pretty quick after Rags crossed the wire and had a relaxing round of drinks and slow-paced dinner at Gwynnett St. in Brooklyn.\u00a0 I had the pike topped with milkweed, ferns and spruce.\u00a0 It was solidly prepared but a bit on the sparse side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The abruptly announced news Friday that I\u2019ll Have Another had a sore leg and wouldn\u2019t attempt to win horse racing\u2019s Triple Crown turned Saturday\u2019s Belmont Stakes into a more ordinary event. It was still fun seeing 85-thousand people fill the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[73,72],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s28tEv-380","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":391,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesauerbrunreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}