racingmeridian.com

Thug life in the blue and white; the five recently acquired Toronto Maple Leafs - Orr, Exelby, Komisarek, Beauchamin and Primeau - accounted for all of seven goals last year. An ESPN report on the pugnacious recruits failed to tally their collective record in scraps, corner battles, open ice whacks and crunching rabbit blows. The Buds should adopt Tupac’s “Hit ‘em Up” as their 2009-10 theme song…despite protests to the contrary, it appears highly unlikely that Phil Kessel will remain a Boston Bruin. The winger remains the subject of trade rumours with the New York Post suggesting a move to the West Coast is in the offing. The Post states the asking price is a young roster player, a prospect and a first round pick. The Bruins were rumoured to have asked the Leafs for their 2009 first rounder and Tomas Kaberle…Arturo Gatti’s widow had the former fighter change his will just three weeks before he died. Surprise, surprise - Amanda Rodrigues inherits everything. No provisions have been made for any other member of the Gatti clan. The Brazilian woman also receives a cool million from a life insurance policy. The story devolves into a perverse and prolonged campaign on the part of Ms Rodrigues to have financial details altered, to lure Gatti to Brazil, and to then have him murdered. The complicity of the police and the Brazilian legal system is astonishing. The revelation that the initial autopsy was only partially completed is a further indictment of the investigation. How a man found in his bed, with a stab wound in the back of his head, is now understood to have hung himself surely defies all forensic precedent…boxing writer Michael Marley has not been helpful with his suggestion that Gatti was losing his eyesight. With no corroboration of this claim it is difficult to ascertain both the degree of any impairment and the long term ramifications. The revelations timing is redolent with the sleaze Marley so often swam in while serving as a publicist for Don King…I’ve watched horse racing all my life. I’ve seen the phonies, the overrated, the outright frauds. After watching Rachel Alexandra destroy a group of colts and geldings at Monmouth yesterday, I’m proclaiming the filly the absolute real deal.  I thought she was in for a tough afternoon when she failed to make the lead and was pushed wide into the first turn. The fast fractions appeared to be the next barrier for Rachel, and she looked to be stalled in third as the pack moved along the backstretch. What happened next was amazing. The filly, when asked, slipped into another gear and simply slaughtered her running companions. Summer Bird, so stout while seizing an invigorating renewal of this years Belmont Stakes, seemed as agog as the spectators camped along the rails. The speedball Munnings was noteworthy travelling into second place but by that point the filly was in another county. No excuses for this shop-worn punter. Every race left on the calendar for Rachel Alexandra demands observance. We haven’t seen the likes of her since Ruffian left a series of scorched race tracks up and down the East Coast in the mid-seventies. A date in the Travers Aug 22^nd would be an instant candidate for event of the year - her decision makers are expected to make a decision on the Saratoga centrepiece within the next couple of weeks…Rachel Alexandra has been given a phenomenal 116 Beyer for her performance in the Haskell Stakes…Thomas Hauser writes, “There’s no such thing as perfection in boxing. But Sugar Ray Robinson as the welterweight champion of the world came close”. The Seconds Out site is running the Hauser’s long overdue reflections on the former welter and middleweight champ…two regrets concerning Robinson. One, he never fought Marcel Cerdan. The Frenchman, who I regard as the second greatest middleweight of all time, was tragically killed in a plane crash as he travelled back to the States to settle a score with Jake LaMotta. Secondly, had Robinson defeated light heavyweight champ Joey Maxim, there are indications he would have challenged Floyd Patterson for the heavyweight title. What a night that would have been. Could Robinson have garnered a narrow decision over the relatively small Patterson?…Emanuel Steward contributes, “The top three fighters of all time are Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson.”…thanks to a new invention, television, thirty million Americans watched the sixth Robinson - La Motta fight. Staged on Feb 14^th, 1951, the fight is known as the St Valentine’s Day massacre. The fight can be viewed on You Tube and serves as overwhelming testimony to the greatness of Robinson…highly recommend the current S I piece on this years Tour de France. The riveting work reads like an expose as the reality behind the stoic nature of the riders reveals intense rivalry, betrayal and gamesmanship. The battle for the 2010 Tour begins, I’m guessing, right now. Lance Armstrong will be bristling with a savage determination not given full reign this year due to the fractious nature of his team and his own infirmaries…how the end begins; the outrageous amounts of money being offered to free agent Fedor Emilianenko will surely have other MMA fighters pondering the comparative flimsiness of their pay packet. As long as Dana White controls the fighters and can order the sexiest match-ups, all is copacetic. When the fighters begin to agitate, the situation will quickly begin to resemble the fractious nature of the boxing scene. With great riches comes great numbers of fleecers, conmen and scumbags…