Why isn't there a horse racing media? There did used to be writers creating real stories with perspective and opinions on the sport.

Take this nasal strip situation to Google news, and look at all the articles that it generates, every single article is a clone from one to three other main stories that were written. I did not see one single hand written article with any independent opinions, views, or extra insight into the controversy. Then by Tuesday morning, it's all gone and forgotten, everybody so happy that we get another chance at a new triple crown race.

The television network really wants it obviously for the huge ratings and profits, the states who share betting pools want it for the increased betting, the track wants it for attendance. So in the end we all owe it to the the other horses connections for taking the extra handicap and letting California Chrome wear his nose sticky.

Just from my own independent testing, they do open and enlarge my nasal passage letting me breathe easier. Would I stick one on my thoroughbred for the first time in the Belmont Stakes and hope that he doesn't get all fractious with it? Definitely not.

But in the bigger picture of the race, and all that's going to happen in the next few weeks of preparations, it's just going to play a very small part in affecting the outcome of the race.

I've been advised by a very close friend that CC does not like dirt getting kicked up in his face, and that he starts climbing when back behind horses this way. Maybe that's why the jock was adamant early in the Preakness to get outside and protect his position. I really doubt that the other horses who have been freshened and training for the distance are just going to open the gates to a free outside lane to heaven so easily.

The difference is that IHA's connections never said (paraphrasing): "If they don't allow IHA to wear nasal strips, maybe they don't want us there. Maybe we will take him to run in the Los Alamitos Derby instead. Probably be a pretty full grandstand that day if we did..."

Pretty big difference...

The reason I am so annoyed about the whole thing is that they held the entire sport to ransom and didn't get the least bit criticized for it.

So if I am to believe you think it was just a normal decision, then this whole thing could have just as easily happened if some random trainer had made this request in any old race? So if someone inquired on behalf of a claimer, the NYRA would have changed the rule within 24 hours, mid-meet?

That is why I said that the connections looked in poor taste to CC in regards to this. Does not take away any accomplishment CC has had to this point.

Nice post grenzen and I do not read any other peoples anything but will take your word for it. Feels stupid to me to get caught up in any speculation myself so I will leave that to all that are into that. Look forward to the race and will be rooting for CC to bring it back to SoCal and be the king of the horse racing world kicking it at Los Al ay pdiggz

I think comparing this situation to Il Have Anothers isnt fair, cos the reason NYRA wasnt gonna allow him to wear the nasal strip was cos of 2 reasons.. Reason#1, the stigma surrounding Dirty Dougs training tactics & all the positives he'd had up to that point made NYRA not want to aid his chances. Reason#2, NYRA was still under its old management, which was proven to be a group of slime balls, considering they were responsible for knowingly taking out more takeout on exotic wagers than what was allowable by NY law. And they did this for a long time without any1 knowing. That was the old management that decided nasal strips wouldnt b allowed, the new NYRA execs/stewards were only doing what should have been done ages ago. I agree, that it looks like sherman held the sport hostage & that it casts a negative shadow over things when he says "they may not let him run if they dont allow him to wear his nasal strip"....... But i cant blame Art for saying that or even doing a lil politicking for his horse.. I see it the same way as when Doc Rivers is telling reporters in a post game interview, "we had 23 team fouls called on us, to there 7 team fouls called on them, that is jus awful, the NBA needs to hold these refs accountable & look into this... If this is the way there gonna treat us, i might as well tell my guys to not even show up & jus give the conference to OKC"...
I see sumthin like that as the same as what Art did. To b fair, the owners did not even know the morning after the preak, that NOT being able to wear nasal strips was a NYRA house rule & when a reporter made Art aware of that rule on sunday morning he says, "oh really, i had no clue of that.... man o man, this Perry Martin fella, he wont b happy to hear that, he's a funny kind of guy & he's the one that suggested trying it & ever since trying it CC's been on a win streak & if u tell him his horse cant wear it, he's liable to jus say hell with it & not run, he's funny like that..."
So, there was no direct threat made, he was jus stating the truth.. This Perry Martin guy is a wild-card, i mean for fack sakes, the guy skipped going to watch his horse run in the preakness bcos of the negative treatment he received in Louisville & was fearful of not receiving the proper hospitality he felt he deserved. This same guy opted to take AMTRAK as his desired form of transportation to get to the Derby from California, so he took a 4day train ride from Sacramento to Louisville (part of his grumpiness in louisville may b bcos of that train ride, bcos he arrived a day late due to delays & maintenance issues). This same guy also said, there charging too much for hotel rooms in louisville, so they got a hotel room in Lexington (90mins away) & would drive into churchill instead of paying a few hundo more & staying at 1 of the prestigious downtown lville hotels that are reserved for the connections of derby owners.
I think u can see the pattern..... I think Art was just being honest when he made the statement "this perry martin guy, he's a funny guy, they tell him cc cant wear his nasal strip, he may jus say were not gonna run then"
I really dont think he was doing it to hold NYRA hostage & force there hand. I think he was jus being brutally honest & was jus having a conversation with Jay Privman, not making a statement at the podium in front of the media after calling a press conference to challenge NYRA's house rule on Nasal Strips.. Had he came out & said "If NYRA says we cant use the nasal strip, we are not running"... Then my opinion would b different, but Art didnt do that, he was jus calling it the way he saw it. He's been dealing w/this owner for 2 years now, & knows what a screw loose he can be....
As far as people saying "ever since he started wearing the nasal strip, he hasnt lost a race since, so it has to be performance enhancing" i have to roll my eyes at & have a chuckle.. CC also had special shoes made for him this winter by his farrier, & those special shoes have been on his hooves ever since the start of the winning streak.... They also made a rider change to Victor this winter & ever since that change, the winning streak began. They also started training on a new surface ever since the win streak started.... So, my point is, its silly to say that its def enhancing his performance when we have no clue if it is &when it could b any or none of those other changes that is to thank for the win streak. I also, do find it interesting that Pletcher said he wont b using a nasal strip on his horses cos he said he's used them n the past & has not seen any performance gain from using them....

Interesting that I heard an interview with Doug O'Neill this week where he said he had no idea he could petition the stewards to allow the nasal strip. He just thought that it wasn't listed, so IHA couldn't wear it. Said he would have kicked himself if he had run without it because he didn't ask.

ATS good stuff man...See now that I see the whole picture or as you described it anyways it does not sound so bad at all actually more funny than anything. The damn owner sounds like me...moved to Vegas last year took the Amtrak because I hate flying from Pontiac to Vegas and after that trip I no longer care about flying Strap me in take the blinkers off so I can see outside and I am good. Some people are just most comfortable in ordinary surroundings.

The nasal strip I guess is just a non issue to me because I do not think it is an issue so I do not care what anyone thinks not to sound like a dik but I mean my mind is made up on it and it is no different than when I was not pitching in baseball I played shortstop but when I would have to switch in a game I would have to take my batting glove off my glove hand. No advantage at all in my performance but they argued it was distracting to the hitter. To me a batting glove used by a hitter is not a performance enhancing product...only evidence I have is there are players we used and did not use batting gloves both in the hall of fame and the last thing you would see is an asterix beside someone who used batting gloves name. I have no other opinion that it even matters on nasal strips.

Now this is what I miss out not watching HRTV or TVG but I just can not take the commercials and hearing really what they have to say. Got tired of paying to watch something on mute so just watch thru adw now.

I also read that the connections had not even known until a reporter mentioned it. That story, floated in the same flagrant propaganda piece I mentioned earlier, does not exactly have the ring of truth to it. In fact, based on what the trainer said and the very specific threat he made, it is obvious bull****. He made a specific threat about where and when they would race the horse and then went on to say he was not making any threats. To think a trainer would expound at length about skipping the last leg of the triple crown due to a very minor piece of equipment, even mentioning a specific race to target rather than the Belmont, all without even discussing it with the owners is just plain silly. These guys may wear cowboy hats but they think and lie like scummy lawyers.

Number of horses faced in the Belmont stakes for the triple crown winners

Post-Oak, im trying to sympathize with ur side of things, but im having trouble. Comparing these owners to being the same thing as city-slicker-slime-ball-solicitors disguised in cowboy hats is sumthin im not grasping.... The only thing, i will continue to agree with you on, is that it did sound a lil bit like he was holding nyra hostage when he said "they may opt to not run him & instead run in the LosAlamitos Derby if they say he cant wear the nasal strip"... However, i do not find it to be nearly as offensive as u do, & il say it again... Had Art said "If nyra says we cant wear the nasal strip, we will not be running", or sumthin like "we will not run in the belmont if nyra says we cant use a nasal strip" then I would then constitute that as a threat & i would more so agree w/you, but he didnt say either of those things & he never made a threat. Yes, insinuating that the owners might opt to not run if NYRA say he cant wear a nasal strip & naming another race that the owners would b more inclined to run in, does sound preposterous when u consider what is on the line, right post-oak? However, he still didnt threaten anyone... Yes, he used poor judgement in choosing his words, but i still think he was being truthful when he told the reporter, "Perry wont b happy to hear that, he may say hell with it & not run".
Yes, it does suck the way it happened. It certainly looks like they forced nyra's hand & gave them no option but to allow nasal strips, cos one would think, if they had said NO, & take the chance he doesnt run, & then miss out on that record breaking attendance/handle/on-track revenue & all the national exposure that theres no way they could say no to them... I get that part, but for me, its the subject matter at hand. Which is equine nasal strips, & its my opinion that the nasal strips should have been allowed ages ago & that this should have never even been a topic of discussion. Its on record that the reason the previous nyra regime disallowed them, was bcos the stewards werent sure how to deal with a situation where, what do we do if the strip were to fall off during a race & interfere with another runner, they also did not have any info on the pro's vs cons of there use bcos of how new they were & how liitle information there was on them out there.
It does suck the way it went down, but i dont think Art was making any threats.
What was way worse to me was when Game On Dude was pointing towards the Pac Classic last year @ Delmar & Bafferts being interviewed the week leading up to it & is asked how he's liking the delmar surface, Bobs reply "well, if it stays like this, we may not run, cos there hasnt been a horse win on the front end all week & speed is his game, but we'll jus keep playing it by ear"..... Then wednesday comes & the delmar main-track is completely different. Only 3 horses from wednesday-sunday on the main-track were able to win a race by not going wire-to-wire... It was the most speed bias i had seen delmar's synthetic surface be, ever!!!

Good stuff MWS!

Got that off Twitter from @horseracing4beg by the looks at the probables if chrome wins he will win the triple crown with the largest Belmont field

no way the reason IHA didnt get the strip was because doug oneil had a bad rap and the NYRA was just starting to clean up its act. it send a message and as fas as i can see there a top 3 in the industry in running a clean program. That my friends makes them shine and more money to come later.

i also liked how on the 20th i wrote about CC already horse of the year . next day horseracingnation writes a story that william hill has CC at -125 already. lolol i dont know ****

Are we going to indict anyone for hacking DRF?

Im surprised they are giving pp's away for free tbh.

I guess I must be one of the 10% that still ccannot access.

What tracks you want? I downloaded every tracks classic pdf pp for today if anybody wants pp's msg me with ur email address asap

Churchill Downs 5/24/14

1.) 6-2-5
2.) 2-5-1
3.) 6-2-3
4.) 6-8-3
5.) 1-4-2
6.) 2-1-4
7.) 1-7-9
8.) 4-5-3
9.) 5-1-7
10.) 8-2-1

Hope everyone itt has a great weekend and good luck on your plays.

Anybody like anything today??

I like the #6 Pass The Dice 12/1 ML
@Arlington in Race9 a lil bit.

I like the #1,& #5 @Evangeline in Race6. I think broberg (#2 horse) will get over bet & make the 1,5 a nice overlay

Does this mean i can now take the 30 horses you selected above & put an X thru them in my form? GL Honcho

[QUOTE=AlwaysTwinNSpired;43376358]Anybody like anything today??

I like the #6 Pass The Dice 12/1 ML
@Arlington in Race9 a lil bit.

i'll be going over to the otb later to play this race. we ran against several of these last year and thought about entering last years version of this race.

if his price is decent i'll be keying the #4/hogy over some combo of 1-3-6-11 for a tri. from memory, seems like most of these are pressers or closers. i'll have to look at a form though.

maybe that 6 can make us both winners.
best of luck

I'm at Arlington, more picks please.

I like the firster #7 by default in race6, & u can use the other 1ster as well #3.
Race7. I like the 2,4,7, with the 2,4 being the value.
Race8. Is wide the F open imho, cos the 10's post, but id use 2,5,6,8,10,11,12 & hope for a price.
Race9, #6

Race10. I like the #8 a lil, but another wide open race

Race11. 1,3,6,11,12

Main track is being awfully speed favoring tho so tread lightly cos i really havent seen a horse win from off the pace yet today on the main.

Hopefully u were able to jump on race6 aphbig. I know i didnt give u much notice at all, i started that post with 20mins to post & kept getting distracted & didnt post until 4-5mins to post, so my bad if u werent able to get on Race6. It ran 7-3 & the exacta was $271.20 for the $2 payoff.

Yeah, I missed that twin. I only bet a super in that race, and did use both but wiffed. Wanted to go real big win on # 10 in race 8, but the wife knocked that down to a fraction.