I see cold people

I was very disappointed yesterday when I attended Woodbine, my local horse racing venue, and they cancelled thoroughbred races 3 through 13. According to the announcement, the jockeys felt it was too cold for them to ride. Having already paid $5 for a racing form and this being the final day of live racing until spring made it particularly upsetting.

Now, I've known them to cancel racing cards due to lightning storms and windy conditions, but this is the first time I've heard the excuse that it's just too cold for the jockeys. While I imagine it's happened before, it seems like a pretty flimsy excuse. After all, standardbred horses (trotters) and their drivers race all winter long through the worst that a Canadian winter can throw at them. Racing in blizzard conditions is almost commonplace. Many is the time when neither fans nor announcer can see the horses at all for much of the race!

I'm sorry if I'm going to upset people, but unless there is a safety concern that was never expressed by the announcer, "too cold for the jockeys" just doesn't cut it with me. The temperature was about 5 C degrees below freezing and there was bright sunshine. Granted, there were wind gusts that produced a wind chill factor, but how bad can it be to be outside for the less than two minutes it takes to run a race? As it was, horses and riders were going directly to the starting gate, dispensing with the post parade.

Most of the betting public spent considerably longer than two minutes walking from the parking lot to the grandstand. I wonder--would the jockeys and everyone else who makes a living from the races be understanding if the public informed them that they would not attend on account of it being too cold to walk from the parking lot? We make that trek even at 40 below! I'm guessing that Mr. Leading-jockey-who's-used-to-spending-the-winter-in-the heat-of-Barbados had a lot to do with the cancellation.

I also wonder why they staged two races before cancelling the rest of the card. It's not like the weather got colder during that time. If anything, it got warmer. Of course, if they had cancelled all the racing before it started, many people wouldn't have attended at all. Once they have us there, obviously we're going to wager on the simulcast races from other tracks. And buy forms and programs. And buy food. Am I the only one who smelled rotten fish?

Speaking of rotten fish, it left a very bad taste in my mouth. I and many others were looking forward to the last day of live racing before the long drought that lasts until April. Jockeys: Next time, bring your long johns.


Horsies frolicking on a beautiful winter day:


You always won every time you placed a bet...

In praise of older...jockeys

Yesterday, a field of eight oldsters lined up for the fourth race at the Santa Anita thoroughbred racing track. However, in a twist, it was the jockeys that were older nags this time. Eight retired racing legends faced off in a bona fide race that saw Canadian Sandy Hawley mark his 6,450th victory.

Hawley, 59, won the Jockey Living Legends race on a horse named Tribal Chief, and was followed to the finish line by seven other retired Hall of Famers. They were, in order, Jerry Bailey, 45; Gary Stevens, 45; Pat Day, 55; Julie Krone, 45; Jacinto Vasquez, 64; Chris McCarron, 53, and Angel Cordero Jr., 65.

Hawley went gate to wire but Bailey had a chance to run him down in the stretch and had this to say after the race: "I got there, and then I had to try and remember what you do in that situation."

Meanwhile, Hawley was humble as he quipped "The horse dragged me to the wire. I got to the stretch, he was still running fine, so I had to tap him a couple of times with the whip to look like I was doing something."

Cordero was equal to the task, remarking "It's OK. I'm used to losing to these guys."

The crowd of 12,000 had a great time.