Wednesday Night Notes

Just a few comments tonight, as I am pondering over the past performances for the amazing Belmont Stakes day card.

A very well written piece on jockey agent Ron Anderson and the whole situation with Larry Jones making the change from Mario Pino to Garrett Gomez on Hard Spun for the Belmont Stakes in Wednesday’s Washington Post. Fascinating how:

When the calls began ringing in after the Preakness, Jones took personal offense to some, even though Hard Spun's owner, Rick Porter, wanted to make a rider change.

"We had a lot of calls; some of them I appreciated, some of them weren't so nice and some of them I couldn't understand why they thought they ought to be able to replace Mario because I thought they were a lot further down on the list than they apparently thought they were," Jones said.

Wonder who those jockeys were?

The old guy is getting no rest…after losing his 66th consecutive race, six-year-old maiden Four Acres is scheduled to start again this coming Saturday, in the first race at Suffolk Downs. Last time out was a six-furlong event; this time he will attempt to get a mile among $5,000 maiden claimers. Since I plan to be at the OTB for Belmont Stakes day, I will have to watch his race with some interest.

Finally, a reminder that on Thursday the CBS Evening News will air a segment on Old Friends, a Kentucky facility for retired thoroughbreds to which the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance makes a donation each year. One of the many racing retirees there is Kiri’s Clown, a $1 million+ winner sired by my dear Foolish Pleasure. Another is Ruhlmann, whose 10-year-old son Cool N Collective (a Canadian-bred graded-stakes placed gelding) runs in the fifth race at Monmouth on Friday against horses half his age.