No birds were harmed during the making of this blog post

Yesterday, I made one of my regular visits to Woodbine raceway, but my visit was anything but regular. I had saved a few slices of old bread to feed to the birds which are always in great abundance on the grounds. There's everything from sparrows to seagulls to Canada geese.

As I exited my car, I immediately spotted a seagull close by. I threw a piece of bread toward him, he let out a squawk and flew away from me for a second, then quickly turned back when he realized what it was I had thrown, snapped it up and took flight. He did so because another seagull had been watching the events unfold from about 25 yards away and was chasing him in no time flat. The pursuer squawked all the while he was in hot pursuit.

I guess the commotion roused a few other gulls from even farther away and as they approached, I threw them another piece of bread. The "lucky" bird who was quick enough to get it was mobbed by the other birds trying to get a piece of the action. I threw another morsel and the scene repeated itself. All the while these birds were making a racket.

As I continued throwing bread, the volume of birds and the volume of their squawking kept rising. Soon they were walking, squawking and flying all around me. I quickened my bread-throwing in an effort to finish it and get the hell out of there. I felt certain that at any moment, Alfred Hitchcock would appear and call off the birds. My last thought as I ran to escape was that at any second I would surely get bombarded by some big, wet, green excrement.

Somehow, I managed to avoid such a disaster. As I neared the entrance, I reflected how different this experience was from the other times I had brought bread there. Rarely had any birds even noticed me and if they did, it was usually a single sparrow who reaped the benefit of my generosity, sometimes under the watchful eye of a black squirrel. It was always a very peaceful scene. From now on, I think I'll just dump all my bread and run. I'm really not looking for any kind of "payment" for it.

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.

At the track

I went to my local thoroughbred racing track this past Saturday. I had my usual luck when betting a horse trained by one of the better trainers there. For one reason or another, I have lost every bet save for one that I have ever made on his horses. I always seem to bet the right horse at the wrong time. Horses with proven records never seem to win when I bet on them.

Anyway, on this occasion, a new way was found for the horse I bet on to lose. The horse started out fine around the middle of the pack. By about one third of the length of the race, he had worked himself up to first. Suddenly he pulled up very quickly and went out of camera range, all the horses advancing well past him--not a good sign. A thought popped into my mind of how appropriate the horse's name was given these circumstances--Payday Peril.

At that point I got up from my chair where I had been watching the race on a big-screen monitor and went outside to see what the matter was. Somehow, the horse had managed to make his way almost a half mile further along the track and was right in front of me where I exited the grandstand. I thought maybe there was hope for the horse since he had gone that far after sustaining whatever ailed him.

He was surrounded by 5-6 people, including his trainer which I recognized. While a couple of men consoled the horse, a couple more were checking out his front legs. My view was slightly obstructed, so I couldn't see exactly what was going on. Just then, the horse reared up and then immediately laid down and suddenly there was no movement. I tried as best I could to look for any signs of breathing. I could not detect any. The horse was very eerily still and I concluded they had euthanized him.

It broke my heart. It made me realize how insignificant my wager on this horse was. This horse who had worked his heart out in perhaps ten races or more, having won three of his last six, including his last two, had earned a small fortune for his connections and had the promise of even more success. I can only hope that he had received the affection and fine treatment he deserved.

They placed a large screen between the horse and onlookers (too late, I thought) and prepared to load the poor creature into the horse ambulance. I retreated back to my seat and remarked to those sitting near me "I think they euthanized that horse". My comment was greeted with stone silence of indifference.

Anyone who has ever entered a horse racing establishment would have immediately noticed how unsavoury many of the patrons are. They are loud, boisterous, rowdy, unkempt, of poor breeding and generally lack proper hygiene. But that day, I found yet another adjective to add to the list: heartless.

Late that night, I googled the horse's name and to my surprise and dismay, I couldn't find a single item relating to the horse's death (or less likely, his condition). I even checked the race track's own website to no avail. The fine career and promise of this horse, and his painful and sad passing had gone by without so much as a footnote.

As I was writing this today, Monday, I checked again for an item on the horse and am glad to see that a few sentences were written in a blog by Jennifer Morrison to mark the gelding's life and death. Jennifer Morrison is the track odds-maker. Kudos to her. The horse racing sport needs more like her.

Here is Jen's blog.