Rachel's out!

The relatively new owners of Preakness winner Rachel Alexandra have decided not to run the horse in the Belmont Stakes next week. Recall that Louisville jockey Calvin Borel rode Rachel to an easy win in the all-female Kentucky Oaks in early May and the next day rode long-shot Mine that Bird, a male, to a strong win in the Kentucky Derby, bringing Mine that Bird back from dead last. When Rachel was sold and the new owners thought she was OK not race against males, Borel picked her over Bird – the first jockey to win the Derby on one horse and then switch to another horse even though the Derby-winning horse was still in the Preakness. Borel rode Rachel to the lead and then the victory in the Preakness. But Bird – ridden by another jockey – again came back from dead last and almost caught her at the end. Borel who in half a dozen previous wins had not had to push Rachel, did so to get the Preakness win. I wondered in a previous blog entry whether Borel might have won on either horse, since the new jockey had a harder time getting Bird through traffic than Borel had had in the Derby.

Bird’s owners thanked Rachel’s owners for letting them know quickly about their decision – they said that the Preakness had taken too much out of Rachel and they wanted to let her rest more. Bird’s owners said the decision was probably good for them, but bad for racing, nipping another Rachel-Bird showdown in the bud. Borel thanked Bird’s owners for being patient with him. The jockey who rode Bird in the Preakness was already committed so they were without a jockey, but waited to find out if Rachel would run, partly figuring that Borel would be available if she did not. And so Borel will be back riding Bird for the first time in a race since the Derby.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Belmont – at 1.5 miles – is the longest of the Triple Crown races, and, if Bird can close like he did in the Preakness, and have more time and distance to catch the leaders – though not now Rachel – he might win. They’ve already called this possibly the Calvin Crown, instead of the Triple Crown, because Borel could become the first jockey to ride two different horses that – collectively won the Triple Crown.

One interesting sidenote: Perhaps the fourth most famous U.S. horse race is the Travers, in August, usually on national TV, and this is run in Saratoga Springs, in the first of my two research sites, where one of my Albany area informants used to hang out to follow the races. Rachel may already be lined up to run another race in lat e June. But, if both Rachel and Bird race in the Travers, this could elevate this race’s profile – and that of Saratoga Springs.

-- Perry

Tax week in pictures

The Obamas got another family member - Bo (pictured above with them), a Portuguese water dog. We'll see if they walk him enough. There was the controversy about whether Bo was really a rescue dog (which candidate Obama had said they would try to get). Yellow ribbons and U.S. flags went up when U.S. Navy snipers rescued the heroic U.S. merchant ship captain and killed three of his captors. But two Facebook friends of mine introduced other perspectives: one pointed out that most Somalian pirates are younger than Vincent, and the other characterized the pirates as Somalia's coast guard (recall that Somalia has almost no functioning government), defending its territorial waters and coast (and exacting fines) for Westerners' massive nuclear waste dumping and overfishing off of the Somalian coast. Coastal Somalians who have suffered heavily because of both of these post-fall of the Somalia government trends apparently sympathize wth the pirates (a small boatland of them having been captured in the picture below). (Recall that we abandoned Somalia after a brief intervention during the "Poppy" Bush to Clinton transition.)



U.S. folks in Louisville, Tallahassee, Albany (NY), Columbus, St. Paul, and no doubt other places where we've lived showed up in force on Wednesday (Tax Day) to protest the Obama budget, the bailouts, tax reform, and so on - linked with some Republican figures. I had hoped to go to the downtown Louisville event (to check it out) - which drew at least several hundred people - but didn't get away from work at lunchtime. (Pictured below are protesters in Albany.) I guess these folks would have generally not signed my support President Obama's budget proposal petition 2 1/2 weeks ago. But some might subscribe to the theories that President Obama is really a Muslim and that he really was not born in the United States and so should not be a U.S. citizen.

-- Perry

Good-bye, "ER"!

I became a TV addict over summer 1994 – partly with my convalescence from a NYC car accident knee injury – and the two shows I was most enthusiastic about in fall 1994, when I was living in Albany, was “NYPD Blue,” set in NYC, and the brand-new show “ER,” set in Chicago. Since other friends – including those back in NYC – were watching also, watching these shows became a connection to NYC (also by watching “Blue,” “Law and Order,” “Seinfeld,” and other shows set in NYC). Also, living by myself (in Albany, Columbus, and Westerville and – eventually - Sarasota, St. Paul, and Macomb), let’s be frank, these were the people I spent many nights at home alone with – when I wasn’t out doing research interviews, typing up interview notes at Kinko’s, reading old newspapers on microfilm in libraries, or eating out.

Over the years, as the characters in “ER” changed, I quit watching 10 p.m. shows because I was getting up at 5:30 a.m. or so to walk the dog, as it became order to follow story arc shows like “ER” when I missed so many episodes, and then – a year or so – when I kicked my TV addiction altogether. And so I haven’t watched the show for so long. (Even before I lived Illinois, I always wanted to do some “ER” tourism, by visiting Chicago’s Cook County Memorial Hospital, which the show’s “County General” is based on. But by the time I got out there – during the year I lived in Illinois – the old building had closed and a very modern hospital building had replaced it. Still, I drove by the old building and took pictures and walked into the new building.)

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Yet the show was such a big part of my life for nearly 10 years – and at least one of the original actors – George Clooney – is still a favorite of ours, from “O Brother Where Art Thou” to “Michael Clayton,” and I still like many old and new characters, including Noah Wylie, the only character to span just all but one or two of the show’s 15 years. Although I never saw the two-hour pilot, he was a brand-new medical student in the show’s first season, and his promotion to one of the show’s main characters really started at the start of Season 2, when my Albany area baby-sitting charge, Chantal, and I watched that season’s bloody opening episode (before I had to get her quickly to bed as her Mom returned home). (Chantal was a Vincent precursor/forerunner.) – that I had to watch the retrospective/finale this past Thursday night.

The retrospective included scenes from many episodes I’ve seen, plus reminiscences from various actors and producers (show creator Michael Crichton died last year). The plot of the x nfinal episode includes a reunion of sorts to mark the opening of Dr. Carter’s new preventive medicine center, a tough time for a new med student a la doctor (who obviously won’t get to stay on the show since it’s ended), a plot that tracked a bit of that classic Season 2 episode “Love’s Labor Lost,” and a connection to beloved original “ER” character Dr. Greene, who died in Season 18 or so, when his daughter (played by the same actress all grown up) comes back as a prospective med student. Good run, “ER”!

-- Perry