Odds and Ends - March 8

- From the Fair Grounds comes word of another drug positive for trainer Jeff Mullins.

In a ruling issued Sunday, Mullins was fined $1,000, because Mighty Beau, who finished second in the Taylor's Special Handicap on Feb. 12, tested positive for the anti-ulcer medication ranitidine

Mullins, who is based in California, said he won't appeal. "I can't afford to go down there and have a hearing," he said. "I'm just going to pay the fine. . . . All it is here is a warning. I was really surprised it was a fine."[Times Picayune (New Orleans)]

He sure complains a lot. As for his tirade the other day in which he said that all bettors are idiots, one fellow trainer, Laura de Seroux, had this to say.

"The things [Mullins] said are so far-reaching. I wish they'd run him out of town. Take his stalls away and send him back to Arizona….He was winning so many races, and no trainer's that good." [LA Times]

- The Jockey Guild called the anti-trust suit filed against it by Churchill Downs an "attack on all jockeys" and went on in typically bizarre fashion:

"It's the oldest trick in the capitalist book--say you care about the workers but you don't like the company they keep," the Guild said in its release. "We'll take care of you, the overlord says, because you don't have the brains to take care of yourselves, and anyone who tells you that you must organize in order to secure your rights as workers, well, he must be selling snake oil." [Bloodhorse]

Who’s writing this stuff, Mao Tse-Tung? I mean, who issues a press release like this; Overlords? Oldest trick in the capitalist books? It sounds more like a Ralph Nader campaign speech. I think maybe the Jockey Guild is some kind of cult, and Dr. G has brainwashed them all or planted a chip in their brains. I mean, this stuff is just weird. Where's the investigative press? What's the frequency, Wayne?

- Steve Haskin on the two-prep campaign of Declan's Moon.

He's a very tall, lean horse and doesn't carry much flesh, and a hard campaign is not something you want to subject him to. "That's precisely what my thinking was," [trainer Ron] Ellis said. "There was no way that I felt he was going to be able to handle a Triple Crown series and have three races before that, too. " [Bloodhorse]

And I love Haskin's account of Zito during Noble Causeway's win on Saturday.

..When Pat Day took him off the rail and darted through a seam outside horses, another figure came darting onto the scene. Zito, who had been watching the race several yards up the horse path, suddenly emerged in front of the Matrix board, jumping and throwing a flurry of wild left hooks in the air. As Noble Causeway opened up and began drawing away from the field, Zito was an unstoppable force. When the horse crossed the wire 3 1/4 lengths in front, an excited Zito kept shouting "That's a Derby horse!" [Bloodhorse]