racingmeridian.com

The Toronto Maple Leafs continue bizarre games with Justin Pogge. Word on the street has dismissed the youngster as a stiff and career minor leaguer for well over a year now. What is the purpose of these trial outings, like last nights humiliation in Minnesota, when Brian Burke and Ron Wilson know Pogge will never present a long term solution to their net woes? The young goalies faults were egregious last night and it allows one to broach the unspeakable topic in Buds land; have Leafs brass accepted that the road to future success begins with life in a fetid tank? My feelings are clear. I want Tavares and feel it is incumbent on Burke to make every effort to obtain the potential superstar…T A N K, T A N K, T A N K, in case I was being in any way opaque…former Leaf Tuuka Rask is currently stuck on the Boston Bruin depth chart behind the formidable pair of Tim Thomas and Manny Fernandez. Prospect Rask was dispatched in a deal for Andrew Raycroft…rumbles from Philadelphia suggest QB Donovan McNabb wants out. Is it time for the Eagles to finally let him go?…future Toronto Raptor Shawn Marion is expected to miss another start for the Miami Heat tonight…Rick Dutrow, trainer of Big Brown, performed a miraculous feat with a three year old this past weekend. The tale begins with gelding This One’s For Phil and his switch from trainer Kathleen O’Connell’s barn to Mr Dutrows. Here, as presented on Jennifer Morrison’s blog, are the eight career Beyer speed figures the gelding earned before he debuted for his new connections on Saturday; 43,33,71,71,79,66,75,79. In his first start for Dutrow, romping four wide and annexing a Stakes, he ran a stunning 117, the fastest number posted by such a young competitor since the Daily Racing Form began publishing the “Beyers” in 1992. In the aftermath of the outlandish improvement the brilliant Andrew Beyer has unleashed a charged column containing a devastating slam against the “supertrainers” who are ripping the heart out of horse racing fans and handicappers alike. Check the piece out, I don’t recall Beyer ever being so vocal and, further, taking the step of “naming names”. His list of the supertrainers to be scrutinized includes Dutrow, Jeff Mullins, Bruce Levin, Jason Serviss, Marty Wolfson, Kirk Ziadie and Jamie Ness. He speaks of “countless others” who, by implication, are using nefarious means to induce bizarre improvement from thoroughbreds. Beyer states the super trainers “have corroded the very foundation of the sport” …truth be told, this is the reason so many lovers of horse racing stood on the sidelines while Big Brown captured the imagination of the general sporting public. Even a weekend handicapper is familiar with the tactics of Dutrow. Torontonians were particularly aggrieved by the trainer’s success, remembering with bitter clarity the betting coup he staged in stealing the 2005 Queen’s Plate with Wild Desert. A Dave Perkins article in the Toronto Star (May 6^th, 2008) hinted that Dutrow would be denied stalls at Woodbine to this day. The stench lingers in the Big Smoke…my web master sent an e-mail just last night asking me to write a blurb about the blog and its purposes. Ironically enough, I replied that I was so conflicted about thoroughbred racing today that I was not sure if I wanted to take the blog back in the direction of day to day coverage of a particular track. The Andrew Beyer column is like a bombshell, an emphatic pronouncement on the corruption that is tolerated in the sport…I know I’ll continue wading through e-mails assuring me that Sugar Shane Mosley was on level Saturday night, and accusing me of vitriol and cynicism. My point was, look, we have a known cheater, a proven rogue, who has a sharp form reversal on a night where the viability of his future as a professional fighter was a stake. The sheer implausibility of a thirty seven year old Mosley not just winning a decision, but hammering Antonio Margarito to the canvas after hurting him on numerous occasions leads me to ask; blood test results, lads? Seriously, show me the damn lab results before asking for an apology…of course, the whole fight has become clouded in suspicion. Why did Bob Arum, Margarito’s promoter, make the pre-fight pronouncement that the Margarito-Cotto rematch would go ahead regardless of the result of the Mosley fight? Why was hardened gauze found as part of Margarito’s hand wraps before the fight? How did Margarito suddenly become so vulnerable to power shots? If there were tainted or opportunistic forces at work, why did the betting line not change? Many, many questions from a most improbable night at the fights…