Vote Blue! (And Brown...)

Not Feeling the Love

- The crowds that lined the walking path in the backyard and the paddock which it leads to belied the disappointment of the crowd of 22,572 which showed up at Saratoga to see Curlin.

If Curlin is, as Tom Durkin stated after his hard-earned Woodward win, the "best horse in the world," then maybe, at least based on this performance, the world of racing really needs to stop and assess just where it stands. The presence of the defending Horse of the Year at Saratoga attracted no more than a relative handful of extra fans to the track. And 14 seconds to get the final eighth of a mile with some urging from Robby Albarado, are you kidding me?

Don't blame NYRA for the lackluster crowd. You can't market in a vacuum. Curlin has little buzz and panache beyond those who crowded the paddock or made the effort to view the race on one of the limited TV outlets. He hasn't raced nearly frequently enough - three times in this country in the last ten months - to establish anywhere near the kind of continuity that could generate press coverage and, more importantly, some rivals. He has no meaningful competition. But that said, the only times he's faced real adversity - a scrappy filly at a distance beyond his best capabilities, and a test on an unfamiliar surface - he's failed. He's never spotted 18 pounds to a speedy rival and had to run him down on a track he may not have liked. He's hardly an ambassador for the sport. And for all the notion of "that powerful strut of his" that Durkin promised as he rounded the turn, he hasn't really shown one since last fall, when he ran the two fastest races of his career in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the BC Classic. Given these circumstances, how does anyone think that Curlin is going to generate any mainstream excitement at all? These are the things that make for a true champion racehorse, one that the public wants to see. And it's mostly not the horse's fault, but rather the symptoms of a broken sport.

Of course, one good way to get some attention would be for Curlin to, as one would expect, proceed to the Breeders' Cup Classic. Personally, I think he does have something to prove at this point. Don't get me wrong, he's unbeaten on dirt this year and has won three Grade 1's; that's no small thing to be sure. But in my opinion, he hasn't shown greatness. Maybe we saw yesterday just why Jess Jackson doesn't seem to want to face Big Brown.

Bigger Attraction Ain't Here

- I didn't make it to the track on Friday. I hope you don't think any less of me. But we all (sans teenagers) went hiking up at Tenant Creek Falls, and we made it all the way up to the third one; a round trip of 4.2 miles I'm told. If I hadn't forgotten my camera in the car I'd post some photos, but Eileen has some I can bore you with later on. I borrowed this one on the internet. Great day despite a persistent cloud cover and my and Eileen's suffering several painful stings from some angry wasps whose home I must have unwittingly disturbed. Ow. It was an accident, y'know! Fortunately, the Head Chef remained unscathed. (She swells up really bad, and may not have been able to cook tonight.)

By the time we got back, I could have run over for the late double. But when I saw that Sinners N Saints, who I liked in the 8th, was scratched, I stayed here, popped open the wine and the laptop.

It was a lazy day at the track on Wednesday. 14,210 doesn't quite fill the place anymore, and it had a definite "last week of the meeting" feel. It must have been a bit better with over 18,000 on hand on Friday. I know that NYRA is hoping for 30,000 for Curlin on Saturday. The weather forecast, though just a possibility of a few passing showers and nothing at all dire, doesn't help. But I don't know if it would matter anyway to be honest.

I just don't sense the kind of buzz about Curlin to think that there would be a crowd of that sort this weekend even if the forecast was fine. I hope I'm wrong, and NYRA, with some help from the town of Saratoga, is doing its best to hype it up.

The Head Chef's brother Claude, here along with wife Leah and daughter Eva, is an avid sports fan. He's not a racing fan, but he's aware of the Triple Crown events, and catches them on TV from time to time. He's excited about coming to the track on Saturday, as is the entire crew, who will be looking for yours truly to achieve pari-mutuel glory. Oh man.

When I told him that Curlin was racing tomorrow, his expression couldn't have been more blank than if I had said Sarah Palin. But when, in what could be considered push-polling, I asked if he'd be more excited if Big Brown was running, he said definitely. I think his reaction is the same as I would get if I posed the same questions to any of my non-addicted fans.

For one thing, it shows how the Kentucky Derby is really the singular horse racing event as far as most people go. The Breeders' Cup Classic? I don't think it registers in the public mind much at all, even, as in this case, combined with the Preakness, a nose loss in the Belmont, and the Dubai World Cup (ha).

The other point here in my mind is that it's Big Brown who is the horse of the moment. No matter what NYRA gets here tomorrow, there's no doubt in my mind that Big Brown would have drawn at least 5,000 more. Big Brown's appeal is a very fleeting thing in our sport, given the way the economics (and, as seems the case for Big Brown, physical problems) shorten horses' careers and the short attention span of the general public. Jess Jackson said he was bringing Curlin back for the good of the sport. The good of the sport demands that he put his pride and any notion that he deserves to call the shots against his more popular rival aside, and make a meeting with Big Brown happen.