Big Brown's Back in Town

Well, it took some doing, but Big Brown is back on top.


photo credit: Patricia McQueen/Thoroughbred Times

After a thrilling finish in the Haskell Invitational (gr.1) at Monmouth Park at the Jersey Shore, Big Brown managed to slip by the front running Coal Play in the final stretch and please his adoring crowd and fans at home as well with a win.

I must say my stomach was 'a churnin' about 3/4 of the way through the race, as it looked like Nick Zito's Coal Play was going to wire the field and win going away. But Brownie struggled a bit to find that other gear, and in a fashion unlike we've seen before from the big bay, he closed (albeit a little slower than I'd like) to get to the wire first.

The Haskell field of horses were not the same top notch atheletes that Big Brown has previously triumphed over. In fact, there were only two other graded stakes winners running.
And after the race, I am sure more than a few people are wondering if Big Brown still is at his top performance level. In other words, this should have been easier.

But hey, as they say in the world of sports, a win is a win.

Big Brown is still a very good, top notch horse. Certainly worth consideration for 2008 Horse of the Year. But he's got some work to do if he expects to beat the amazing group of stand-out horses from the past few years that will show up for the Breeders' Cup Classic. Namely Curlin (if they should decide to run there), Colonel John, Pyro, Macho Again, and of course the old man- Commentator.

But for now, I'm basking in the joy of the win. Happy that he redeemed himself, restoring his reputation as the near-freak he is.

Congrats Brownie, for making people believe again.


photo credit: Bill Denver/Equi-Photo

*This above photo of Big Brown and second-place finisher Coal Play from the Haskell really does prove that horses can fly. Between them, all eight legs are in the air. Cool shot!

Food for thought...or not.

(No friend of mine.)


While I was sitting at a Chinese restaurant (a very good one, actually - PF Chang's at the Waterfront in Pittsburgh), I got to thinking about food I would not eat.
Probably because my father in law made the obligatory remark about the possibility of the food being cat. He even went as far as to say he had actually eaten cat when in Vietnam in the late 60's (ugh).

Anyhow, it brought to mind (because of a few menu items I cringed at) things I just can't see myself eating. And there is alot of disgusting stuff out there.


(Seriously, who the hell would EAT those?)

Now I'm certainly no Andrew Zimmer - and though a fan of Anthony Bourdain, he is also not my food eating role model.
So let's just skip all the things that most ordinary people wouldn't ever eat anyway- like bugs, monkey brains, animal penises/testicles/intestines, blood pudding, rats, cats, dogs, horses and any other unimaginable feast (that means camel, too, Bourdain!)...

Let's just go with what folks out there are actually eating that turns my stomach.

*oysters (looks like snot. might be.)

*escargo (that's snails, people! seriously! I mean, look at the picture up near the top of this entry. Makes my blood curdle at the thought.)

*caviar (quite a fancy word for fish eggs. If they just said fish eggs no one would eat them)

*lamb (because I like little sheep)

*veal (because I like little cows, dammit!)

*pigs feet (pickled like my grandfather used to eat them, or otherwise)

*liver (animal insides... just not cool)

*brussel sprouts (I'm willing to admit they look cute, isn't that enough?)

*celery (because it is stringy and waaayyyy to strong-flavored)

*pulp-full orange juice (without pulp, fine. Too much pulp and I'm gagging)

*sushi (what are we? cavemen? I believe fire WAS invented, no?)

*cottage cheese (I can't even get past what it looks like...)

*prawns (I actually can't say I've even eaten these, and they are probably good... but man do they look like the thing of nightmares. Come to think of it, so do shrimp and lobsters, but I love them...)

*head cheese (that should just be self explanatory)

*fatty meats, or just fat in general (my grandmother ate tons of this and lived to be 89. Go figure.)

*SPAM (I recently bought some, thinking ' oh how cool, I used to eat this when I was a kid ' ... then I ate it and thought.... 'maybe it wasn't SPAM I was thinking of...')

*canned peas (for the love of God why do they taste so UN-like actual peas?!)

Still hungry?

Let's get a pizza!

Older and wiser

Have to give a shout out to the awesome 7 year old racehorse Commentator, who on July 26 won the Whitney Handicap for older horses at the historic Saratoga ("the spa") Racecourse.


photo credit: Coglianese photos

Obviously a gelding or he wouldn't still be running (!) , he easily won in front-running fashion over a very talented group of thoroughbreds.

And as if that weren't enough, this is the second time he's won the Whitney.
He won it back in 2005 as well!

And they say there are no IRON HORSES left.
Watch and learn.
They do exist.

The Whitney was a Breeders' Cup 'win and you're in' race, meaning Commentator has a guaranteed spot in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita Racetrack on October 25th.
The Breeders' Cup is the World Championships for Thoroughbred Horseracing and is a fantastic day of racing for fans. All the best from all year.


photo credit: Barbara Livingston

Commentator's trainer, Nick Zito, had this to say after the convincing win:
“This is a good illustration to anyone who gets old -- don’t ever give up.”

Congrats!
Good luck in October.

Happy Retirement, Lava Man!

All over the thoroughbred horseracing world today is the news that it has been decided to retire the fanatasic gelding, Lava Man.


photo credit: Anne Eberhardt

A 7 year-old grandson of the immortal Seattle Slew (whoo-hoo!) - and son of the great Slew City Slew, Lava Man won mulitple grade 1 races over dirt, grass, and the new synthetic racetracks.

He was widely regarded as 'The King of California Racing' for quite a time, and in fact joined only Native Dancer in winning the Hollywood Gold Cup an amazing three times.


photo credit : Blood Horse

In the last year, Lava Man has pretty much made it evident that he is tired. A string of recent losses, coupled with a tell-tale Xray of his ankles helped to make the decision to retire him an obvious one.

His trainer, Doug O'Neill, hopes to convince Lava Man's owners to allow him to be a pony horse (in layman's terms, a pony horse is one that goes to the track - usually ridden by a trainer - and is there when current runners are on the track prior to a race).

Lava Man will also have the distinction of being the most lucrative claim in racing history. He was claimed (bought) for only $50,000 in 2004 and continued on to make over 5 million dollars profit by racing wins/purses. Not bad, eh?

He retires with $5, 268,706 in earnings and the love of a nation of horseracing fans.
Thanks for the memories!

Cats are just funny

"Watch my eyes.... you're getting veeerrry sleepy.......
..now, where are those tuna treats?....."



"That Jay Leno is a real hoot!..."

Garden Tour : Part 2

So here's some more shots of my garden.


White lillies
Have to admit, I think this is a gorgeous photo.



Bee Balm (one of my favorites)



White Coneflowers
I actually like them better than the purple I think.



Purple coneflowers (bit blurry, sorry)
Got a bit too close with the lens...

Peach Daylilly
Unusual color, I thought.

Purple Gayfeather (a.k.a. Liatris) and Paper Lace (behind)
The Paper Lace blew in from who knows where but I just let it go cause it's actually kinda pretty.

Daylillies again - aren't they a striking color?

Black-Eyed Susans (another fave)

Reminds me of the Preakness Stakes.



Yet another pic of Bee Balm
Hummingbirds love these!

Light pink (though you cannot tell) Balloon Flowers
(would have been better without the TAG in the middle, duh.)



An overhead view of one of my garden beds

(from my top deck)
It's a bit wild.

And here's a friend of the garden.
I do believe she is the mom of the babies from earlier this spring.
I love birds.

The new front porch, built entirely by the hubby...
His talents are endless.

I do have some more pictures yet to come, so there will no doubt be a Part 3 at some point.

Garden Tour - Part 1

Thought I would share some photos of our backyard. I have some more on the way, but seeing as how I am behind the times and do not have a digital camera (yet!), I have to wait for mine the old fashioned way... but thanks to snapfish , they are at least posted online.

So here goes:


This is our backyard patio - we have a little fire pit and a barrel water feature.
It is adjacent to our lower deck. The hubby made everything, as usual.

On one side of our lower deck is the newly crafted (thanks to the exceptionally talented hubby) outdoor bar. It even has a sink. It can double nicely as a potting bench. Rock on!

Another view of the "cantina"...
Margaritas anyone?

My columbine from a bit earlier this year. It is very much a spring flower.
I like them very much and have several colors.

My old fashioned climbing rose bush in a very vivid scarlet hue.

Mini daises and yellow yarrow. You wouldn't think so, but those daisies stink to the high heavens! Yuk. And they spread like a wildfire. Pretty cute though.

This hosta always does really well. What a great color!

The basket of petunias on my upper deck on the picnic table, courtesy of my mother-in-law.



On the upper deck, a flower box of petunias.

Two types of Coleus and a Geranium.
The coleus are some of my favorites. I get them every year for my deck and they just get HUGE. The leaves are so striking and different.

Dianthus are also called 'pinks' by old-timers.

One of my Clematis vines. They get these awesomely large blossoms on them. There were many more flowers but I didn't take the pictures in time. My bad.

My magenta Clematis vine. So pretty!

Ok, so that's all for now.
Next time: Daylillies, coneflowers, bee balm, and a brand new front porch. (I like to keep the hubby busy...)

Later :)

Seriously?

This is almost too weird (and funny) to be true.

I recently saw a story on MSNBC 'weird news' about a woman who killed her husband with a fold-out couch. I mean, seriously?

Read about it here .

You just can't make this stuff up!

Smarty Party!!

Since I didn't have my blog back when Smarty Jones was running, it is my pleasure to post the news that Smarty had his first winner on July 11th. His daughter, La Equivocada (out of the mare Dragonada (by Nureyev), won in wire to wire fashion at Camarero Race Track in Puerto Rico.
Smarty looks pretty happy about the news, eh?

Also in Smarty news, the Kentucky division of the Make-A-Wish foundation recently granted a wish to young Patrick Munro of Greenlawn, NY.
His wish was to meet Smarty Jones - and with the help of Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky (where Smarty stands as a stallion), Patrick spent the better part of a day in April seeing and spending time with the 2004 Champion three-year-old.

photo courtesy Three Chimneys Farm

Patrick suffers from hydrocephalus and is both blind and hearing impaired, but it didn't stop him from petting Smarty, getting a tour of the farm, and doing a meet and greet with several of Smarty's babies.
The governor of Kentucky declared that day 'Patrick Munro Day' across the state!

In the days to follow, he got to go to Churchill Downs and meet several jockeys and listen to some races, spent another day at the wonderful (trust me, I've been there) Kentucky Horse Park and yet another day at Keeneland racetrack where they gave him the key to the city of Lexington.
So it sounds like Patrick had some really cool and special memories to take home to New York with him.

I love heartwarming stories like that, and it makes it all the more exciting that it involved one of my all time favorite thoroughbreds, Smarty Jones.

Love ya, big guy.

The cozier the better.

Those of you who know me, know I have an infatuation with books. I have said several times that I have more books than I will ever have time to read and I still keep on buying.

I found a series of books I want to mention cause they are just fun reads. I guess they are some of the luckier books on my shelves. I've always thought of my books as characters in the children's book 'The Velveteen Rabbit' (one of my faves) -I always assume my books are like the stuffed toys - whereas the toys just want to be loved, my books just want to be read. I am trying my best to make everyone feel loved.

So, anyway, I read obsessively. And I read everything. Horror, true crime, nature, mainstream/popular fiction, chick-lit, history, supernatural, non-fiction of any kind.. I like pretty much anything except straight-forward sappy Harlequin-type romance. Besides horror, my favorite genre is mystery.
I used to read every James Patterson I could get my hands on - but I am done with him for awhile - everything he writes sounds the same now, and he is punching books out so fast I have serious doubts about whether or not HE is the one actually writing these novels. Whatever.

I digress.

Mysteries. I have recently, in the last few years, discovered a whole new sub-genre of mystery - the "cozy". Generally, a cozy is a type of crime fiction/mystery where there is a female lead who works in some other field than criminal justice of any kind, but who might have a buddy/boyfriend on the police force or the likes so she can aquire details about the crimes. She usually lives in a small town where there just happens to be a higher rate of murder than your average small town. She happens upon these crimes and uses her wit and various contacts around town to help her solve the mysteries. She usually has a bunch of friends and family that weave throughout the story causing their own little side-story problems.

Believe me, they aren't curing cancer with these stories - and there's no major violence or blood most of the time. But the mysteries are tight little stories that wrap up in a cute little bow, and usually leave a tidbit or two that will lead to the next story starring our heroine.

Perhaps one of the best known writers of cozies would be Agatha Christie, though she also had a man (Hercule Poirot) as her protagonist as well as the series with the famous Miss Marple.
On tv, Angela Lansbury's 'Murder She Wrote' was a classic example of a cozy, just made for tv.

I have discovered that there are thousands of these types of mysteries all over the shelves at my local Borders and on amazon.com. It's amazing. Because of my interests, I have found series about horseracing mysteries, wine lovers mysteries, cats who help solve murders, bookshop mysteries, and supernatural/witchy tales. But anything you like, there is a cozy out there to suit you.
There are ones about sewing, crafting, scrapbooking, photography, holidays, fashion, flower-shops, vampire hunters, werewolves, tea and coffee shops, herbs, Olde English-style mysteries, Renaissance-era, King Arthur times, dogs who help solve murders, foodies, traveling...etc. They probably even make a NASCAR mystery series -I have never looked (and never will).
There is even a series of glass-blowers mysteries - I shit you not.

Anyway, one of my recent favorites is the 'Bewitching Mysteries' by Madelyn Alt.
It 'stars' Maggie O'Dell, who quits her boring office job and takes a job at a local antiques & things store called 'Enchantments' (a place not unlike the store on Ghost Whisperer). She soon finds out her boss is, quite seriously, a witch. But none of that green face and flying monkey stuff...
Mysteries seem to abound in Maggie's small town, and the murder average is seemingly getting higher. She always seems to get herself right in the middle of things. Classic.

Alt has written an interesting group of secondary characters as well and there is a love triangle of sorts that has been setting up slowly, but there is no major sex in the novels (yet) - just longing glances, kisses, and things like that. Nothing to bog down the mystery too heavily.
And if you need something really quick to read that you don't have to concentrate too hard on (it's not Tolstoy or Dostoevsky here...), these are perfect.
In other words, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to enjoy these novels.

Her next book - No Rest For The Wiccan - comes out in november. That's a long time, but I'll manage. There's alot to read in the meantime...

Happy Independence Day

Ollie's big day!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY OLIVER!

My cat's a rock star.

Seriously, this effect is easy @ http://www.magmypic.com/

*Seems like just yesterday Ollie was living in my basement, growing up with his sisters.
He was so tiny.

He's been with us since he was 2 weeks old, so we're pretty used to having him around.

Now he's nearly 15 pounds and dwarfs his sister Biscuit.

Extra treats today!
Love you O-man.