OCTAVE-the-RAVE

Cushion Track is billed as an all-weather surface, but when Magna track-surface consultant Ted Malloy was asked how the surface handled the approximate half-inch of weekend rain, he answered, "Not very well." Malloy said it will improve with revised maintenance procedures.

Santa Anita vice president and general manager George Haines added: "We're doing everything we can to make this the safest track possible. Obviously we are concerned. Now that we have the track, we have to get the maintenance right."

DRF On-Line, 9/25/07, reporting on Oak Tree and the death of Drill Down

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What I do for a living my brother with two Ph.D.'s still doesn't fully comprehend after more than 20 years.  By Cliff Notes, I consult to Fortune 100 companies that compete for large Government contracts.  By industry title, I am an SME - Subject Matter Expert.  Currently, I am writing the Quality Control and Risk Management Plans for a $14.5B Logistics and Supply Chain specialist competing for a $500M Marine Corps contract.

Quality Control and Risk Management!

Assuming you know absolutely nothing about either discipline, nonetheless if I asked what the FIRST THING you would do following installation of your new, multi-million dollar racing surface to: 1) Test its overall quality; and 2) Test it versus its #1 by a landslide top-level risk -- equine fatality -- I guarantee 95 percent of you would say something on the order of ...

"Cordon-off a section of the track, bombard it with a water cannon, and see how well it drains and dries out."

Are you phuquing kidding me?  Seriously, folks, where do they find these nitwits, and how is it that the racing industry manages with mind-bending alacrity to absorb them like some giant, Kosmic Kotex?

Rave

Yesterday's contest wagers were my first of any kind since the middle of July.  I've been on assignment, holed-up, and away from the game.  Worse, this whacko gig goes 7-days-a-week. 

I downloaded the PPs Saturday night, took them back to the hotel, and knew at once I had no chance! With the exception of Sterwins, "Lamey" Sanders' rat in the last race, and the Calder cripples, I could not recall ever seeing another entry run, either in person or on tape.  And what I long ago discovered once again held true yesterday IN SPADES: if I had to go back to playing this game using only the printed PPs, I'd go broke in no time.

For those who can and can do it well -- and apparently that includes many of you, based on the truly astonishing results from yesterday -- you have my undying respect.

One HUGE request, si voux plait, to the person covering the BC for HPdaily.com: please, spare us your opinions!  In fact, we'll be inundated in opinion all week, almost entirely from folks who won't be within a scud missile's range of Monmouth Park.  You will be.  Up close, and personal.  What we need instead ... what we all can use and apply ... is learned observation. 

Assuming JP selects the right person, as I fully trust he will, that term should need no further explanation.

Again ... spectacular wagering yesterday!

Rave

There is no greater hypocrisy in the world today than "cheating" in sports.  Anyone who doesn't realize it either is an idealist, or a nitwit.

In 1967, my buddy Butch Roussel was a highly recruited freshman quarterback at the University of Houston.  Each Friday he'd find under his door an envelope that contained the keys and lot number to his weekend rental car.  Waiting for him in the glove compartment was another envelope with $300 in cash. 

That was 40 years ago! 

Today, it's not unusual to hear about a senior hoopster at some poverty-ridden, obscure black high school driving to practice every day in a $75,000 sports car.  Archie Manning is on record as saying the package the University of Tennessee put together to get his son Peyton to return for his senior year of eligibility was worth more than he (Archie) made in the final year of his contract with the Saints.

But they don't pay amateur athletes!  Yeah, right ...

The average annual salary of a starting pro athlete today is more than most people make in a lifetime.  In light of the fact that the vast majority otherwise would be working a stock room at Wal-Mart, the incentive to use performance enhancing drugs is overwhelming.  Worse, they clandestinely are encouraged by every segment of the population, from team owners who know long balls and bone crushing hits put asses in seats, and remunerate accordingly; to a gushing media who pay these superstars idol worship; to the average citizen whose quality of life often is morbidly intertwined with the success or failure of his hometown sporting heroes.

The greatest hypocrisy in all of sports is in horse racing.  With new racing venues being approved in record numbers, and racing dates exploding beyond all semblance of reason, the pressure on racing secretaries to fill stalls and churn-out competitive cards has become staggering.  Yet I guarantee you ... right here ... right on these very pages over the next 24 hours ... otherwise perfectly lucid people will pen bed-wetting, sophomoric diatribes about how desperately we need to "clean-up our sport," totally oblivious to the immutable realities of the modern game.  Catch cheaters?  Ferret-out drugged horses?  Suspend trainers?  Toward what end?  So already strapped and distressed racing secretaries can empty-out stalls and further deplete already desperately depleted racing stocks?

How naive are you people, anyway? 

One of the greatest quotes ever was Mark Twain's, "Never miss a good opportunity to shut-up!"  In fact, all this mindless, totally oblivious-to-reality belly-aching about cleaning-up horse racing is so pathetically naïve it make seers out of those who believe our sport to be a haven for nitwits.  The reason it's never going to happen is because making it happen effectively will end the game as we know it. 

And who with an IQ above the Mendoza Line doesn't know that?

Octave-the-Rave

The rather amazing bit of news I am about to share with you came this morning in the form of an e-mail from my brother Bill, aka CLOCKER 1.  The e-mail read simply, "Congratulations," and was tagged with an attachment.

Before I share the attachment, I sincerely want to thank the 11 blogger/readers who enthusiastically offered to help in my quest to get Equibase/DRF to include "DNCL" - did not change leads - in their respective past performance trip lines. (Big Blog Pages, "Part II: The 30-Year No-Brainer;" June 15, 2007; 11 comments).  You'll recall I abandoned the initiative v. these pages when it failed to receive an iota of endorsement from the judges.  Even a day as remarkable as this one is not without its gray cloud.  What a day this could have been for all of us.

As is, I decided to continue pursuing the initiative on my own, as I have for years.  This time, I e-mailed a copy of the article to my "buddy" Brian Turner in the Player Services Department at Brisnet, asking simply that he read it, and give it consideration.  Although I have never laid eyes on Brian Turner in my life, he is a genuine throw-back to the old-school days of customer service, and a HUGE credit to his employer.  Over the past 2-3 years, whenever I've had a problem or concern with Brisnet, I have gone directly to Brian.  More often than not, he has taken care of it within hours.  On those rare occasions when he could not, he always has called or e-mailed with an apology, and a thoughtful, fully-detailed explanation. 

And how many people today on Planet Customer Service can you say that about?

The attachment follows.  Check-out the chart write-up on the winner of the first race, and the chart write-up AND TRIP LINE COMMENT on the winner of the second race.  Brian is off today, so I don't know if he had anything to do with this, or even if it's merely an anomaly, rather than a full-blown Come to Jesus.

When I know more, I'll follow-up.

Octave-the-Rave

  Click here to view the Official Equibase® Chart

When I joined this site more than a year ago, it wasn't to win any contests, least of all a popularity contest.  I joined because I believed that regular horseplayers today have less influence in the game than ever in my 40+ years.  As everyday players, we are the life blood of our sport.  Without us, every race track in North America would shut down inside a week, yet we have no national organizations, no industry lobbying groups, no congressional representatives, nor even a single Player's Rep.

What we have is THIS!  This website, and others like it, are the sum total of our voice in the game.  I peruse them all.  I contribute only to this one because I believe it is among the few that is read, and taken seriously, by those in racing who make the rules. 

Last year, we tackled some serious issues on here.  We lobbied racing to curtail the wanton slaughter of horses for pocket change.  They responded.  We urged racing to unify its protocols for DQs, or get rid of DQs altogether, and once again they responded.  There is no way of knowing what influence, if any, we had on either issue, nor is that important.  What's important is that through intelligent discourse, we arrived at majority viewpoints on both issues that clearly were in the best interest of our fellow players and our sport.  In each case, we opted for change over status quo. Both issues, in fact, have changed to reflect our majority views, and the game is better for it. 

For reasons far too complex to broach, we've abandoned the very ship that sailed this site to the forefront of cyber-prominence.  We've abandoned the one thing that made us different from all the others; that forced the industry sit-up and take notice; and that brought new readers here in droves: dealing with issues. 

Far be it for me to speculate on the business motivations that prompted the change.  I wouldn't know where to begin.  What I do know is that the Big Blog Pages have lost much of their uniqueness.  It's why I've been absent of late.  I suspect the same can be said for McKinney; The Hoarsehorseplayer; Professor Marshall (Equinometrics); The Judge (Severe MacDeer); Lost Code; Aparagon4U (Lenny); and so many others who once were part of the roar.

Hopefully after the Breeders' Cup, we can regain our focus, and get back to doing what made us special, and what made these pages worth visiting.

Octave-the-Rave

While perusing the entries for Saratoga yesterday, I was shocked to discover a filly firster by the name of Tenacious entered in the sixth race.  For those like the nitwits at the Jockey Club who never heard of Tenacious, he was one of America's top handicap horses in the late 50's, and arguably the greatest race horse ever to come out of the historic Fair Grounds.

His storied career included back-to-back victories in the prestigious New Orleans Handicap in '58 and '59, a race that has been run without interruption since 1924, and has been won over the years by the likes of Master Command, Brass Hat, Mineshaft, Peace Rules, Include, Concern, Wild Again, Master Derby, Diplomat Way, Cabildo, and Yorktown. 

Trained by the legendary conditioner and close family friend Joe W. Brown, Tenacious remains today a fixture at the FG.  Before the devastating fire in the early 90's, there were more photos and placards celebrating his great career than any horse ever to step foot on the track.  Tenacious also was the horse my brother Bill, aka CLOCKER 1, legged-up at the age of eight for a walk around the shedrow - an event that ultimately would determine the course of the rest of his life.

For those who still would invoke the "tradition" argument whenever the subject of changing the Triple Crown schedule arises, here in maudlin insipidity is testament to my argument that tradition has less to do with it than the searing ignorance rampant in every segment of the game today.  Clearly, no one on the Jockey Club committee who approved this name entry ever heard of the great Tenacious.

And how embarrassing for our sport is that?

Rave