Where Have All the Scholars Gone?
Tuesday, August 8, 2017

    With all the concerns about the quality of education in our schools these days, I always get a kick out of listening to the myriad of mispronunciations that go out over the airwaves. And nowhere are there more than on our favorite racing channel, TVG.

    I can't include the incessant bungling of Leparoux because the boobs didn't take French when they were younger. But some of the others, such as inclement, mischievous, mambo, machinations and too many others to list, make one wonder just what the analysts were doing in the classroom when they were supposed to be studying. Handicapping, I guess.

    A humorous new addition popped up in the ninth race at Finger Lakes today. The 9 horse was a New York-bred named Traipse in Utopia, not surprisingly, by Utopia out of Traipse. The TVG newbie, whose voice I had never heard before - I think his name is Scott - handicapped the race for us and called the horse Trap-see. Bingo - another name to add to the extensive bungled list. I wondered if Scott would pay attention to the track announcer and come back with the right pronunciation when it was over. 

    And presto! The announcer let us know that No. 9 was Traps in Utopia. Oh well.

    A little while later, in mentioning a horse at Presque Isle named Blichton, after our own little horse community, he called it "Blinton." When Blichton made a good run through the stretch to win the race at 6-1, the announcer called him "Blickton," and that's when Scott changed his call to Blickton, too. Better than Blinton, I guess.

    THREE STAKES-PLACED RUNNERS - Brethren didn't get a winner in four chances in Saturday's stakes races, but Pleasant Acres' freshman son of Distorted Humor did come away with three stakes-placed runners. Dunk finished second in the $100,000 Dr. Fager Stakes at Gulfstream Park and Awesome Mass did likewise in the $100,000 Desert Vixen. Both the colt and the filly were well-backed at the windows, so that was somewhat disappointing. However, there was a  good reason - the winners, Phantom Ro (by 2 3/4 lengths) and Go Astray (by 4 3/4), were overpowering. Go Astray is by Northwest Stud's Gone Astray, who had Three Rules win all three colt and gelding divisions of the Florida Sire Stakes last year, and who is not taking prisoners so far this year.

    The third stakes-placed runner for Brethren was Feisty Embrace, who went off at 7-1 in the $50,000 Louisiana Cup Juvenile Fillies and closed well to be third although never a threat to win it. However, her strong run through the stretch was impressive enough to make us believe she will get better as the races get longer.  

    WHERE ARE THE ENTRIES? - A couple of years ago, I complained in this space that the Blood-Horse was short-changing its breeders on their expensive stallion pages by not including all of a stallion's entrants under the column head "upcoming entries." I received a response a short while later from Eric Mitchell, then editor of the Blood-Horse. Eric explained that only the better races - stakes, handicaps, allowances, starters, etc. - were represented in the column, since breeders didn't want to publicize horses who were competing in the cheap claimers.

    The practice continues today and it's very disconcerting to anybody who wants to know every horse who's running by a certain stallion each day. And to blow open Eric's explanation, EVERY WINNER a stallion has, no matter how cheap the race, is listed under "recent results," right next to upcoming entries. How can a horse be too cheap so as to be excluded from the upcoming entries list, and then make it on recent results? Yul Brynner would have said 'it's a puzzlement.'  

    THE OWNERS COUNT! - And, not to let the FTBOA's Wire-To-Wire magazine off the hook, I cannot for the life of me understand how the charts from Gulfstream Park - and Tampa Bay Downs when it's open - list the winner's pedigree, trainer and breeder under the chart and leave out the owner? It makes no sense. 

    And, if the answer to the dilemma is that it's a matter of space, I offer this. There would be plenty more space if, on the page titled "Florida Stallion Progeny for (Monday) . . ." they would actually list progeny from Florida stallions, instead of including many stallions who stood in Ocala during the days of the dinosaurs but who have since moved on to other pastures. It wouldn't be quite as bad if the entries listed were old Florida-breds, but THEY AREN'T! 

    In today's entries, for example, Milwaukee Brew, who hasn't been here since the St. Louis Browns were in the American League, is listed as having Strike Me Again in the eighth at Fort Erie, and he's an Ontario-bred. I can't even remember how long it's been since Invisible Ink was here, and he has Pennsylvania-bred Invisible in the fourth at Presque Isle. It's the same for runners by Chapel Royal, Lite the Fuse, One Nice Cat, Shakespeare, Sligo Bay, Songandaprayer and Trust N Luck. All long gone, all listed with runners from other states.

    To the bigwigs at Wire-To-Wire: Nobody needs to peruse the progeny of a stallion from yesteryear who were bred somewhere else after the stallion departed. Get rid of them, then you can add the owners of Gulfstream's winners. 

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