Spitzer Tries Again

- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer......what is ‘gubernatorial’ anyway? What relationship does that word have to ‘governor?’ Why don't they call them Gubernators then? Anyway, Spitzer has re-filed the indictments against two Belmont clerks of scales for allegedly allowing riders to falsify their riding weights. The move comes despite the fact that the case has been ridiculed and more or less discredited by the racing press (like that has a lot of influence), and reviled as "political grandstanding" in a widely publicized (even beyond the racing press) 20 page letter by a member of the original grand jury.

Spitzer’s office denied that the move was an attempt to tie up a potentially embarrassing loose end come November, and prosecutors insist that the charges have merit and that investigators collected videotape evidence of the falsifications.

But here’s another thing. Nobody amongst the bettors who were supposedly cheated could possibly care less about this. We care about illegal medication and conspiracies to fix races, but very few of us worry about a few pounds on a thousand pound animal going 40 miles and hour. In fact, personally, I would prefer that a sympathetic clerk of scales give a rider struggling on the scales the benefit of the doubt, or even a little more, rather than see the jockey endangering his/her health trying to keep pounds off.

- Pletcher said that he’s considering running Keyed Entry in the Woody Stephens Breeders Cup on Belmont Day, but he’s wary of Too Much Bling and Songster. "At seven furlongs he's as good as anybody, but I have to decide if five weeks after running a mile and a quarter it makes sense to run with two very good sprinters." [Daily Racing Form] What I want to know is why a trainer who won five Belmonts in a row would have a seven furlong sprint named for him.

- Giacomo is not ready to return to the races, a fact that seemed evident given the s-l-o-w works I’ve been receiving alerts on lately. Sherriffs usually cranks him up slowly but steadily to a quick work, but he hasn’t come close to one. "He's just not to the point where I want to lean on him too much.” [Daily Racing Form]