racingmeridian.com

Big shout out to Toronto native Kevin Weekes, the starting goalie in New Jersey after Martin Brodeurs unfortunate injury. Weekes is a big time horse racing fan and often visits Woodbine while in the Big Smoke. He is funny and engaging to all who approach him and I wish him nothing but the best as he steps into the swampland spotlight…Rick Nash has gone without a goal for six games. When he doesn’t score, the Columbus Blue Jackets sink…Alexander Ovechkin returned to the Washington Capitals last night, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the score sheet…Al Davis is, according to ESPN, set to release cornerback DeAngelo Hall in order to save 16 million dollars in bonuses. Question - what possible bonuses could Hall be eligible for on that wretched squad? Either way, dismissing one of your star players is a repulsively cynical move. This Raider squad is imploding and QB prospect JaMarcus Rusell deserves far better than to be caught up in the mess…the Raptors welcome Allen Iverson and the Detroit Pistons to the ACC tonight. Iverson is going to be in Detroit for one year and then allowed to depart. The Pistons join the list of teams already planning on going after a Chris Bosh, a LeBron James, during the 2010 free agent signing frenzy…the 2008 Melbourne Cup was as bizarre a race as I’ve ever seen. The Aidan O’Brien Irish trio ran off on their own and at the mile and a quarter point had opened up six lengths on the field. As favourite Septimus eased into the lead it appeared a memorable day was in the offing. And then…all three Irish horses stopped. It was surreal. Septimus and Honolulu went lame and their pace maker, Alessandro Volta, hit the proverbial wall. O’Brien was absolutely livid, proclaiming the super hard ground as the culprit in injuring his valuable charges. To add insult, the Australian Stewards put O’Brien on the carpet over the tactics of Volta. The horse was clearly a rabbit, a strategy employed by O’Brien with frequency but a device of increasing controversy in both England and Australia…Nikolai Valuev is literally begging his promoters to find him an opponent other than Evander Holyfield for his December fight in Germany. This is a rare show of integrity from an alphabet soup champion. The Holyfield fight would surely give Nikolai a greater purse than other proposed opponents, Andrew Golota or Jameel McLine, but the prospect of beating on a diminished Holyfield is apparently stomach turning for the 7 foot giant…at WOODBINE…in the first NIGHT CHAPEL dips back into the selling ranks for Mark Casse. I’d prefer the steering was done by Pat Husbands but in a two turn affair Corey Fraser is an excellent substitute…in the third TEMPESTA DI NEVE starts for the irrepressible Ralph Biamonte and he’ll be keyed up to snag some of that Rexdale loot. Firster Caribe could be the main antagonist…LEGAL LOVE can double up in the fourth. The lightly raced filly is off her Maiden score and we note her handlers are quite modest with their ambitions…in the fifth CHUSAN represents the deadliest of all modern thoroughbred angles, the speedball acquiring Lasix…BLU THEM AWAY showed nice energy and determination Sept 25^th, rallying to hit the board. He drops a class and is our “numero uno” play of the night…the final sees RESILIENCY slumming it and he should be able to power his way past these cheapies…