First Post: Saturday, May 4, 2013

Nothing, my lord…

King Lear. William Shakespeare. Ever read it? Well, it’s a tragedy, one that would have been averted (spoiler alert: it ends badly for the King) had he seen through the meaninglessness of the words and instead implicitly trusted the simplicity of the deeds. Yup, Cordelia got a raw deal. Yup, the King’s ego did him in. Hubris! Hamartia!

Mark Cramer, solid author and reasonably nonpreachy handicapping authority. He asked us to get a feel for the music of Thelonious Monk so that we might never suffer the misfortune of being habitual chalk-eaters. Damn if he was not correct.

Thelonious lives forever, certainly. But it’s a now world, and you have to give the electric guitars their proper due.

Television, Luna, atmospherics, theatrics, art-glam rock and jangly indie pop at their best. If you can get a feel for the soulfulness at play here, you may not necessarily become a profitable horserace speculator; however, you’ll accomplish something just as good: you’ll never make 50,000 posts to a single message board. You’ll never waste your time with 5,000 of them, even. Fifty, 500, OK; but 50,000? Your life is more meaningful than that, is it not? So we hope!

Free ones: Rundown…

Belmont 1, 2, 8
Golden Gate 3, 5, 6, 10
BFHollyPark 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Pay-side: Today…

Woodbine 5
Pimlico 3
Arlington 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12
Louisiana 1, 2, 3, 10
Lone Star 3

Today’s Stakes Pageantry: BFHollyPark 10 is on the free page.

Looks strong for #6 Almighty O in Beulah 7.

Free-for-all at Les Bois 10 (why are the racing-information sites ignoring Les Bois, anyway?) with #4 Flying Coastal seeming just as likely as any of the others.

Back to the chalk now for #1 Unfettered in SrP 8.

Again with the fave in WRD 5: #5 Rah Rah Rachel. But in the seventh there, it’s second-choice on the morning line #5 Du Da Dandy getting top billing.

Yesterday’s Activity: This we know: the 2013 Cynthia Publishing Company Par Times are doing OK. They feel good in terms of the output they are generating.

First, however, as always, Welcome to The Home of The Runner-Up Finish. A near-hit at 23-1 in Pimlico 3, courtesy of Second Bonkersmate Shaikha, defeated by a dirty head while defeating nine others. For goodness gracious, four horses touted overall in this race, and we still can’t get by the 3-1 second-public-choice winner. Well, at least that winner was OK on the LifeLiner Speed Column analysis, and the exacta came back $123 (only!) (for $2). And continuing on our theme from yesterday, there was absolutely no coöperation from the show-horse; bye-bye trifecta! Thanks a lot!

Nice work in Pimlico 7, whereby three horses got touted and two of those completed the ignominious bottom-two exacta. Yes! Talent!

In more irony than usual for us, we actually were forced to tout the great horse named John Galt (!) (who is he?) in Arlington 7. He did us no good before yesterday; he did us no good yesterday; he shall do us no good tomorrow; forever and ever, world without end, aynmen. (The celebrant makes the sign of the almighty dollar upon the congregation.)

Small props to Second Bonkersmate Our Girl Magic in Arlington 9; a runner-up finish at a modest 10-1, beaten only one length by a LifeLiner Speed Column nonqualifier. Sorry. Regretsz.

Also small props in Race 2 at Louisiana to Heavens Hall, honourable runner-up at 9-1 behind the 4-5 chalk who was a fellow LifeLiner Speed Column qualifier. The insurance exacta was a puny $24-and-change. As the late, great Mistah Richard Mitchell would have put it, “Throw it back!” (Interestingly, when we would go out fishing as small boys with our dear, departed dad, he would say the exact same thing when we landed a small fish; it is always good to observe and to remember.)

As for Churchill, an ingrained and most likely false modesty (Delbarton, Lawrenceville, Tulane — yup, that’ll do it all right, with a phantom postgraduate degree from Claremont McKenna [yeah, right! in our dreamsz!] thrown in, but, yes, if we had to get some kind of certificate after the Baccalaureate, it would have been from a solid, modest, dependable school like Claremont McKenna and hopefully not California State University at Chico) prevents us from reportage. Maybe it’ll be picked up by the PAYS ADVERTISEMENTS site, except we have only detractors over there. They enjoy impressing each other. Such fun. Ah, well. As long as you know, as long as you know…

WMF Report:

Early
Beulah 5½f
Chas. Town 4½f, 6½f
Keystone 6f
Prairie 6f
Turf Paradise 6f
The WRD 6f

Nocturnal Submission: Nebraska! Finale at Fonner (7:19 p.m. EDT / 4:19 p.m. PDT), so there’s the potential of a King of the NetCapper Bulliesz score via the Triple Stumper threesome of #4 Streaking Silver, #7 Double Jump, #5 King Farha. …Nice. Another possibility for a King of the NetCapper Bulliesz finish at Fairmount (5:30 / 2:30): #5 Burgan Rules. …

Thank you. Best wishes. Goodbye. Drive safely.