FYI, initial necropsy shows that he died of probable cardiac arrest from an underlying condition of Colitis X  
(http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1790040) caused by the deadly bacteria Clostridium perfringens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_perfringens).

What a game this is!

The horse spiked a temp yesterday.

It never got above 102, which is not very high.

Suddenly, at 4:30 Wednesday morning, he simply collapsed in his stall at Belmont Park.

We are having an autopsy performed.

J. J. Toner suspects that he may have had an undected abscess in a lung that may have burst under the stress of the race. He did have a lung infection last year.

I am mystified.

Sustuh from Another Planet!

I really think that if this field had met under common circumstances, with say a month between races, the filly wins by half a dozen. She is that good.

Jerry, as low as the economy has gotten, unfortunately the house owners of Saratoga are still living in 2005.

I plan to wait until the meet is a week old before even looking for a place this year.

I wanna see blood in the streets before plunking down my gelt.

Andy is the best turf writer of his generation.

His prose is a thing of beauty.

Plus he gives a shit.

Zayat and Allen lame attempts at shutting out Rachel Alexandra didn\'t strike you as a bit eccentric?

All things considered, I still think a dirt track with a proper base is better for horses than a synthetic track. Most trainers would agree with this.

The move to synthetic stems from Keeneland and Del Mar.

Keeneland could never figure out a way to have a normal dirt track. They tried a lot of different things and finally went to Poly.

Del Mar has always had trouble with its base because of its proximity to the Pacific ocean. There are sink holes that are difficult to fill.

Rick Shapiro went over board and threw out the baby with the bathwater.

Things spiraled out of control after that.

The best news is that because most racetracks are broke, nobody right now seems like pushing synthetic tracks, thank goodness.

Supposedly there are 3 separate videos of the incidents.

If the allegations turn out to be true, Shapiro seems a likely candidate for a suicide watch, given the money he lost with Bernie Madoff and the probable loss of his new venture with racing\'s stakeholders in California.

At the very least he will be forced into some sort of probation that includes a \"mandated\" series of sessions with a psychologist.

In a week that surely must rank as the looniest in memory, comes this absolute stunner.

If anybody can top this, give it a shot!

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-horse-allegation12-2009may12,0,5199327.story

When I first read this stuff I had to check out the date to make sure it was not April 1.

Jerry:

1. Yes, correct. Jenny Rees, Louisville Courier Journal.

2. Yes, correct! I guess the stewards were padding their resumes in case one of them wanted to apply for a job in California.

I believe that it now 1 in a row for Baffert.

And congratulations to him for making this point.

I would like to point out something that I don\'t think most American handicappers understand.

Fillies and mares can run successfully against males in Europe and Britain because they are racing on grass.

Fillies and mares cannot run as successfully against males in North American if the races are on dirt.

The difference is that when horses run on turf, they are racing on top of the ground. When they race on dirt, they have to slug their way through it.

Big difference.

Former requires speed.

Latter requires strength.

Just think of Curlin as an example of a dirt horse that couldn\'t as effective on the turf. He was a power runner, not a speed runner.

Most horses in America of either sex that act on grass and not dirt do so because they lack strength, especially in their hind ends.

Lucky!

Best of luck with the legal action.