Friesan Fires Bullet; No Matter

- Friesan Fire burned up the track at Churchill, working five furlongs in 57 4/5 seconds, with splits of :11 1/5, :22 1/5, :33 3/5, and 45:1/5. Friesan Fire galloped out six furlongs in 1:14. Since I'm firmly committed to standing against him off seven weeks off on both principle and in hope of saving what's left of the Derby prep season as we know it, I don't really care if he worked faster than an Ovechkin wrist shot. We heard the usual defensive rationalization from the connections afterwards - he was "well within himself," the rider thought he went in a minute, it "didn’t look like he was working that hard," etc., etc. Whatever, if he wins, I lose, and so be it. And he'll of course be an even lower price now with Quality Road, another I was eagerly looking forward to leaving completely off my tickets, out of the race; too bad.

- TheDay.com, a Connecticut-based website, reported late last week that Mohegan Sun has yet to decide whether to resubmit a bid for the Aqueduct racino....or whether or not Capital Play will again be a partner if they do.

”We're running models of the competitive landscape and haven't decided whether to provide a bid,” Jeffrey Hartmann, chief operating officer of the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, which manages Mohegan Sun, said Thursday. He added, however, “We believe we have the best understanding of the Northeast gaming market.” [TheDay.com]

Hartmann added that the new RFP does not provide an option for bidders interested only in building and managing the casino as opposed to owning it; and that will apparently dissuade at least one other potential bidder.

”New York contemplates that the winner (of the bidding process) would own and operate the facility,” Armentrout said. “They're looking at a $3 million upfront payment just to be considered, as well as the upfront licensing fee and effectively a 78 percent tax rate. Based on that, it's not likely that we're going to participate this time around.”

Indeed, it does not sound like a very appealing proposition.

- I may certainly be missing something somewhere, but it appears as to me, as confirmed by the NY Post, that the MTA's cancellation of the Long Island Railroad's service to Belmont, is the very first doomsday-plan service cut. Considering that the MTA plans to completely eliminate two subway lines - the W and the Z - as well as dozens of bus routes, I'd also guess that it's the one that affects the least amount of people NYRA is reportedly spending $100,000 of its own money to provide the bus shuttle from the Queens Village station.

- Well, it comes down to Game 7 for the Rangers, now outscored by an embarrassing 14-5 in losing three of the last four games while blowing a 3-1 series lead; the Caps shot, skated, elbowed, and bit their way to a 5-3 win. After stopping 37 of 38 shots in providing one of the more spectacular goaltending displays that I've seen in winning Game 4, Henrik Lundqvist has surrendered nine goals on 34 shots. The first two goals yesterday were quite similar to the goals given up by Jose Theodore in Game 1 which caused him to be benched. The King has to be much better if the Broadway Blueshirts have any hope against hope tomorrow night.

They will also have to do without Blair Betts, their best penalty killer. 18,000 fans and millions thousands of fans watching on NBC saw the thug Donald Brashear take Betts out with a vicious and very late elbow to the face; but apparently, all four of the on-ice officials missed it. Betts suffered a broken orbital bone. Instead of getting a major power play at a time when the action had tilted in their favor, the Rangers soon had a cheap call go against them and fell behind for good. Given the goal disparity in the last four games, no doubt it is not because of the referees that the Rangers find themselves in this position. If this were a hockey blog, I could go on about what ails them for quite some time. However, I will say that the officiating in this series has been a fucking disgrace ever since the opening seconds of Game 1 when a bogus penalty to Dan Girardi was assessed. I hope the NHL will be very happy with their treasured Ovechkin-Crosby Eastern final that few outside of those relatively small viewing areas will watch.