Richiebee,
The third-floor grandstand is still open. You have to go up through the clubhouse and walk thorugh the Manhattan Terrace restaurant. They\'ve cordoned off about half of the inside but all of the outside walkway/viewing areas are still open (and there is still plenty of room inside too).

As a single event this may not seem all that important, but it\'s still a sad commentary on the state of our beloved sport.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/28/AR2005122801582.html?referrer=email
To our Readers:
Thursday, December 29, 2005; Page E08
Beginning Sunday, The Washington Post Sports section will no longer publish daily statistical horse racing information from our local tracks. The drop in popularity in the sport and the need to cover new teams in the area, such as the Washington Nationals, have forced us to make this difficult decision. However, we will continue to cover the sport as before with Andrew Beyer and John Scheinman.
In surveys, our readers have told us that horse racing ranks at the bottom of sports in which they are interested. Meantime, other sports and teams have been of growing interest to readers. Not only have the Nationals arrived, but we have emerging powers in men\'s and women\'s college basketball with large fan bases that need to be served. We will continue to try to serve the greatest number of readers possible.
   .
-- Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, Sports Editor

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/new-orleans-imagery.htm

www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/new-orleans-imagery.htm

I know it\'s the last thing we should be worrying about but this site has some amazing sattelite images of the Fairgrounds pre- and post-Katrina. The track is underwater and it looks like it\'s been devastated.

There are other images of the New Orleans area that give a sense of the scale of this disaster.

Sorry for the slightly off-topic post, but I\'m heading to Sydney for the next two weeks and was wondering whether anyone has advice on where to watch the Preakness while in Australia?

Do the tracks there simulcast Triple Crown races? Is it even available on TV?

Any help is much appreciated.

Poor little (well, not so little) Dickie D. Brother Anthony is probably plenty happy flying under the radar in Md./Del and then heading into NY under cover of night for the occasional score. Tho wouldn't be interesting to see how DD's horses do if transferred to Anthony. Maybe Thorograph could apply an 'ADx2' (Latin for the year of the other (Anthony) Dutrow) to horses that make the transfer.

What other NY trainers has Goldfarb used? Is there an able assistant who can step in? The whole barn must be on NEEDLES and pins waiting to see what happens (literally).

And for all of R.Dutrow\'s many sins it doesn\'t seem right that Goldfarb walks away. Presumably the sale scheme that violated claiming rules was orchestrated at the behest of Goldfarb. Why not suspend the owner too?

Free Richard Dutrow! No Justice, No Juice!

--

http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=27925
by Lenny Shulman
Date Posted: 5/2/2005 4:02:08 PM
Last Updated: 5/2/2005 4:46:51 PM
Trainer Richard Dutrow Jr., who trains Sis City, the likely favorite in Friday\'s Kentucky Oaks (gr. I), was suspended for 120 days beginning June 1 for three separate violations incurred over the past two years, but half of the suspension could be stayed.

The New York State Racing and Wagering Board announced Monday Dutrow has dropped his appeals of the three charges, two for medication violations and one for an illegal claim. Dutrow will also pay fines totaling $5,000.

Sixty days of the suspension will be stayed and discharged if Dutrow does not commit any significant violation of board rules. During the period of suspension, Dutrow will not be allowed to participate in New York pari-mutuel horse racing directly or indirectly, and shall be denied privileges and use of the grounds of all New York racetracks. Other jurisdictions around the country make their own decisions on whether to allow Dutrow to enter horses during the term of his suspension.

The board found that Farmer Jake, trained by Dutrow, raced at Aqueduct April 27, 2003, with the drug mepivacaine present in its system. The board fined Dutrow $3,000 and gave him a 45-day license suspension for the violation. On Jan. 11, 2004, Starship Smokestar, trained by Dutrow, was found to have raced at Aqueduct with clenbuterol present in its system. The board fined Dutrow $2,000 and added a 15-day license suspension.

In the claiming charge, the board said between May 16-June 12, 2004, Dutrow claimed and resold a horse within 30 days and entered and caused it to be raced in the name of a person who was not the owner, in violation of board rules. The horse, Cap, was claimed in the name of Sanford Goldfarb May 12 at Belmont Park.

On May 19 the horse was transferred to Lawrence Roman, who was ineligible to claim. Then, on June 12, the horse raced at Belmont in the name of Goldfarb. The board handed out a 60-day license suspension for the charge, which shall be conditionally stayed if Dutrow does not violate board rules.

\"The board continues to take a firm stance against inappropriate use of equine drugs and believes strongly about holding people accountable for their violations,\" said Stacy Clifford, spokesperson for the racing and wagering board.

NYRA and now the Thoroughbred Times have shut their online forums in the past month, citing the behavior of certain posters/participants. I\'d presume that some lawyers representing a \'supertrainer\' or owner (or maybe a figure maker!) have been sending out threatening letters.

Anyone have any idea who\'s behind this?

And JB, have any cease and desist letters come across the transom lately (or any nasty late-night phonecalls)?

It\'s not cheating if you don\'t get caught. And in the case of steroids, it\'s not cheating even if you do.

You can give a horse most any kind of steroid in all U.S. racing jurisdictions.



Post Edited (03-02-05 00:49)

Okay, wiseguys.

Who are the bet-againsts starting Wednesday at AQU. Dutrow, Contessa, Levine? Any others?

The Chapmans are full of horsesh*t. They did take the money and run, and good for them. Smarty\'s stud fee is set and he\'s already being booked. Does anyone really think they\'d really be able to walk away from the $11 million in stud fees that Smarty will generate next year? There\'s no way Smarty was running again.  

The anti-Smarty backlash may be a tad unfair but they\'re obviously feeling it and they\'re stepping up the propaganda campaign to support their lunchticket.  They\'re probably going to lose Horse of the Year to GZ and came close to losing the three-year old championship to Kitten\'s Joy. No one saw that happening in August.  This is making it more difficult to justify his six-figure  stud fee given hispedestrian lineage.

Earned it!? Ugh. Please.

Back me with a billionaire family willing to spend, and the best bloodstock in the game and I\'ll thank you in my acceptance speech in ten years.

And Desormeaux\'s entry is a real travesty. What a joke. He shouldn\'t even be allowed in if he pays admission.



Post Edited (08-10-04 12:24)

but why can\'t horses run races after entering the breeding shed. Are they too \"worked up\" or otherwise spent?

Take the case of War Emblem who was a dud in the shed. Why couldn\'t he return to training at 5?

What about small- and medium-sized tracks without live ground? Is there reliable or complete information about track maintenance, wind, weather, etc. available?

From Cindy Adams (of all places):  Stronach wants to turn \"old and run down\" Belmont into a mall.  


http://www.nypost.com/gossip/cindy.htm

--
Smarty Jones wasn\'t the only winning smarty at the Preakness. In the clubhouse I sat with Frank Stronach, founder/chairman of Magna Entertainment, America\'s leading track owner. His turf includes Pimlico. Said Stronach:

\"New York should be the center of racing. Not Kentucky or anyplace else. New York. To make that happen I am prepared to invest a billion dollars.\"

I right away ordered seconds on the Maryland crab cakes.

\"I have 15 tracks - Gulfstream, Pimlico, Santa Anita. Your Belmont is old and run down, built back when people had no choice about what to put up. I want to create a whole new facility. A major entertainment destination center for the entire family. Track for the father, mall for the mother, games for the kids, adjacent Vegas-style hotel with big name concerts. And I\'ll build up the back end. Stables. Dorms. Housing. Training center for the people.\"

Stronach\'s from Austria. \"Same town as Schwarzenegger.\" But, trust me, he speaks better. He\'s also handsomer. He lives in Canada. His beautiful daughter Belinda came within a blonde hair of becoming prime minister, and creates media copy throughout North America. In \'62 he bought his first horse. He now employs 80,000 people. Smarty Jones should only keep running this good.

\"With all my tracks I could have a constant program going. Everything linked together. New York, with the greatest population, should be its center. The government has to make up its mind. A new licensing process is coming due in two years. They should just put it out for tender.\"


The man\'s right. Then, maybe, we might even have New York steak and New York cheesecake on the lunch menu at Pimlico.

>>How many other true horseman ran their >>Kentucky Derby winners for a tag?How many >>other true horseman ran their Kentucky >>Derby winners for a tag?

Which Derby winner ran for tag?