Barron's Article a Freebie (For Now)

- My article and sidebar are both now avilable in the free content section of the Barron's website, at this time, anyway. Thanks to reader Thecalicocat for pointing that out to me. In fact, thanks go to him for hooking me up with them in the first place! He read the original piece that I sent in to them and, let's just say that I don't disagree with his assessment about its quality as compared to the final result. It was sure a different experience than just cranking out blog posts, that's for sure!

- The weather forecast is very bleak here as far as Highland Cat's turf debut tomorrow. The forecast calls for "soaking" rains. In fact, they're calling for rain for virtually the next week. I don't yet know what Bill Turner's intentions are if the race comes off the grass. As far as Christening goes, the race on Sunday at Delaware did not fill, so she stays in the barn for now. Expenses are piling up for both of these, and the first cash call isn't very far away.

- The Preakness field remains in flux, especially regarding Lawyer Ron. After declaring him as doubtful, Holthus now may run him if X-rays return negative.

"He's eating well and appears to have come out of the race well.....He didn't lose a lot of weight. He feels good. I think this is the best chance he's got of winning a (Triple Crown) race, even though Barbaro was very impressive." [NY Daily News]

Wayne Lukas says that Simon Pure is out ("I think [Barbaro] should scare a few horses away - me included.") Hemingway's Key is in for Nick Zito.

- A writer at NBC has lost his job over apparent plagiarism during the network's Derby coverage. A reader alerted the NY Times about striking similarities between the script narrated by Tom Hammond during the segment on Michael Matz' plane crash heroics, and one for an episode of The West Wing. If someone is going to copy something, you'd think he'd at least use a show from a different network!

The Derby script summed up the changed lives of Matz, Solis and Hendricks by saying that the "funny thing about life is that every time we think we've measured our capacity to meet its challenges, we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless."

In "The West Wing," Bartlet said, "The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we've measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless." [NY Times]

Some people's capacity for stupidity sometimes seems limitless as well.