Racehorses I have known

The last time I was at Churchill Downs I luxuriated on Millionaire's Row, delighting in a camphor-like essence emanating from a silver cup all iced up with Makers Mark, sugar water and ground mint. Folks around Louisville named that a Mint Julep.


As I recall, we were well into hot weather when Sister Shirl and I were squired about by our own personal--and genuine--Kentucky Colonel, my late brother-in-law, Warren. He sure did know how to show us a good time at America's most genteel race track.

It was thrilling to stand in the midst of the Downs history; I felt immense energy the second I walked through its gates. By having a love of horses myself, just being there gave me one of the happiest times of my life. It didn't matter that it was just another race day at Churchill Downs. I think I even won a couple of bucks. I was in heaven.

Now that I've walked around the track, the Kentucky Derby is even more special. Today's Derby run and win by Mine That Bird has brought back another time in my life that gave me much joy reminding me that life can be a wonderment of repeated events, if only just memories.

Or, I'm just getting old.

I've owned a couple or three horses. One of my horses cost me about the same as Mine That Bird once sold for. Originally, another I wound up with was won in a claim race by its original owner. If you don't know, a claim race is an event where iffy horses with iffy futures go to get a home. They run a race and people win them. It's not exactly the Special Olympics, but there are some problem rides.

The man who won one of my horses raced him too early and often, and messed up his legs. My understanding is the owner was not a horse person, but he had big ideas of raising a winner. Stupid man.

Having failed at his original plan, the horse was then anted in a poker game. The same thing happened with a new owner. Finally, this idiot got it through his head that the horse wouldn't run because he was broken down by age 2-1/2 and sold him to a nice lady who trained him to be a hunter/jumper.

This is where I came in. I bought this horse for a lot of money--not a small number for a single mother who was broke all of the time. But this single purchase kept my children off the streets and at the stables where they belonged mucking stalls for many years.

Years ago, someone told me that owning a sailboat is like standing in the shower and tearing up $20 dollar bills. Taking into account inflation, that amount should be $50 by now. That's one "hobby."

Owning a thoroughbred is like standing is a pile of manure and tearing up $100 dollar bills.

Back to my horse. The name the old owner came up with was "Halston." I'll bet the owner's girlfriend named him. His Jockey Club name escapes me. He was a big bay gelding--18 hands--who had a wild streak in him a mile-wide, probably emanating from his unfortunate childhood. Only one of my daughters could ride him well. I guess she wasn't afraid of him. But then, she wasn't afraid of me either. Or anyone else for that matter.

He was a great jumper and fast as, well a rabbit or, a racehorse, an E-Ride for sure. But, worst of all, he was a horse I couldn't count on. That made me mad considering his job description.

Eventually, as my twin girls grew older, their interests changed. Turning 16 in the horse world is when most girls leave riding behind. They preferred other forms of transportation, so off to work they went to buy their cars. I was left holding the reins, so to speak.

Neither I nor my husband were going to actually try to stride this monster, whose idea of pleasure riding was cantering along for a while then throwing his head in wild ways and jumping up and down like a jack in the box, and then suddenly coming to a stop; then doing it again; and then again.  It was time to sell the horse.

I wish I could say I got my money out of Halston. Horses must believe in Karma, because every time I tried to show him to a buyer, he would break out in great, huge whorls of hives. It was as if he knew that any new buyer--especially those with darling daughters in tow--would send him through the same routine of living in a stable paddock (nice as it was) and schlepping to stupid horse shows with dumb, insipid, spoiled little rich people who cry all the time if they don't win and then gets blamed.

I always tried to console Halston regarding the horse show thing, telling him at least he'd see other horses and and he could compare notes; how handsome he was, that he was certainly the biggest dude in the barn. I certainly don't know why he complained. I even gave him extra carrots and apples.

His demonstration of appreciation was limited. After he nearly broke my arm when I turned him out in a corral, I yelled at him and told him I was going to give him away. Out of spite, I sold him to a trainer for a dollar, which is what I told him he was worth. I understand the buyer/trainer put him out to pasture, the best place for him.

I had another horse. "Marty" was a little over 15 hands, about the size of Mine That Bird who looked almost exactly like him in form and image. He used to slip in and out of places too like Mine. In fact, they should rename Mine "Mercury" for his ability to shimmey between those two semis on either side of him in today's final run for the roses.

We sold Marty to a polo player in Solano Beach for $500. No, not much money, but I've never seen a happier horse. Besides, we had an opportunity to attend a couple of polo matches. My girls and I cried when he left, but we parted on good terms. He was just too little for hunter/jumper events. Again, horse karma. He's happy.

Oh, Marty and I had no conversations. I think he might have had "little horse syndrome."

Gosh, those were wonderful times!

Thanks for the read.

Let's start at the very beginning...

It's a very good place to start.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY

Thanks for the read.

Republicans have Obama Envy!

And bad.

There's not one substantive issue or event, short of a nuclear blast in the middle of Omaha, that will divert the world's positive attention away from President Obama. Most people, according to most polls, absolutely love the guy.

Sure, he didn't get all the stimulus goodies he and one-eyed Gordon tried to foist off on the Europeans; and a Pied Piper he's not when it came to recruiting "foreign" troops for all that unpleasantness in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Nevermind his tiresome, especially irritating inability to tell the truth about American cold war history during his big mea culpa speech in Prague. It was interesting to me that the audience there was so receptive, considering their parents' nightmarish lives with the Soviet Union. Indeed, I'm sure there were many generational arguments over Czech dinner tables of vodka, cabbage and carp when the kids said they thought socialism was okay. Old fogies know nothing, after all.

Then we see the next day that the Turks fell in love with him when once again he apologized for America's existence, explaining our country's origins as I've never quite heard them from an American president: he instructed the Muslim town hall audience that we are a nation of citizens who have come together as such, i.e., as citizens, not as Judeo Christians, but as seculars, which is, of course, a huge lie.

Words means things. He said so himself, I think maybe in Paris. I wish he would re-read America's Declaration of Independence. God is mentioned a lot therein.

No matter. Most Americans don't seem to care about such unimportant factoids. Why? Because they were relegated to unimportance in our union-heavy, left-leaning educational system which insists on rewriting history and sinking the Judeo Christian aspect of our nation's origins forever. It's called re-education. After forty or so years of it, we've got an entire generation who 1) doesn't care and 2) doesn't know any better.

This nescience has gifted us with more of a preoccupation of Michelle Obama, her children and her fabulous pearls and J. Crew numbers than Sharia Law. Don't be silly. It could never happen here. That only happens in countries like, well...like Afghanistan, wherever the hell that is.

This morning we hear the president has dropped in on our troops in Iraq for a few hours. I think he refrained from mentioning the major cuts in military spending coming up. Big cuts that mean about 100 thousand jobs cut. Just as important are the defense machines being cut--missile defense. But then, when Obama's non-nuclear world is realized we won't need no stinking missile defense.

It seems there's really not much that the Republicans--especially the current rather lackluster ones--can do to stop all of this excitement--other than just wait and remember that the infatuation ends eventually. And vote no as many times as possible.

Sometimes being a Republican is no fun at all, especially if you live in Omaha.

Thanks for the read.

They're laughing all the way to the--WAIT a minute--they ARE the bank!

I knew you couldn't trust those guys. Somehow or other they got Paulson and the president (Bush) and the entire congress and a bunch of other people to sign off on a $700 billion dollar bail out back in September of ought eight--without strings.

THEN, a bunch of banks went under, and the TARP banks we righteous Americans lent money to held on to the funds, I suppose waiting for the new president (?).

THEN, the new president hip hopped into the House. The stock market fell into that place which Dante speaks of at about three-quarters into his novel. Bad Place. But we have a new president and we're happy, happy, happy...no bad places...no Dante.

THEN, the banks continued not to lend any money, and AIG kept asking for more money...and getting it.

THEN, the banks didn't lend any more money, and people were losing their jobs and AIG asked for more money and the stock market fell again.

THEN, the banks didn't lend any money at all, and people were really scared that they were going to lose their jobs, and many did...and darned if Americans didn't find out that the new Obama administration was all involved in a bunch of billions of dollars worth of AIG retention bonuses. Too bad most of them left.

THEN, unfortunate things just kept happening. And the bankers are just sitting and waiting for the amateurs to settle down so they can make their money. And all I can do is wonder: if I own the bank why can't I demand that they lend that money?

Thanks for the read.

The right wing bottle blondes, Limbaugh and the rest of us

I've written about Limbaugh. People know how much I dislike the man for his narcissism and coldness. He has crowned himself kings of kings without permission from hardly anyone except the Democrats and continues to truckle along as if someone actually thinks he is the royalty of my Republican Party.

The Democrats love to redefine us Republicans. In fact, that duty has always been Job One for Dems--not running the country, but making sure they destroy Republicans. They care about nothing other than maintaining power at all costs. Look it up in their rule book. Thus, they are earnest in their predictable effort of calling the idealogue Limbaugh the leader of all Republicans. I would remind them that most Republicans are not crazy right wingers regardless of what brush they try to paint us with.

The same goes for the Anne Coulters and Laura Ingrahams, those right wing harpies who roost on the lower limbs of the extreme right (in speech), whose periodical droppings are left for the rest of us Republicans, usually women, to clean up. Meanwhile, I'm beginning to wonder if it's more a hormonal/emotional/personality issue for these women. Gosh, they're unpleasant. And the big, garish crosses they wear? Nice touch.

Their latest target is Meghan McCain, John's daughter. She is a moderate Republican who had the temerity to speak up and voice an opinion contrary to Mlles Clairol, criticizing the far right wing of the party. That never sits well with any of these folks. She may have well copped that she was a mass murderer, the reaction was so strong. One of the kinder responses was Ingraham calling Meghan "plus size" and the Dems' "flavor of the month." Nice, Ingraham. I can only imagine what the phone call among the three, Limbaugh, Coulter and Ingraham, consisted of the night before this lambaste.

Does any well meaning American really, honest and truly, WANT President Obama to go down in flames as Limbaugh basically insists he wants? I don't. Even if it's beneficial to our party? I think that reveals poor citizenship and I'd be ashamed to admit to such hatred filling my heart and soul. Of course, there is nothing wrong with comity and civility by remaining, as we have done for 250 plus years, the loyal opposition. But to hope and pray for complete failure? No.

No, narcissistic ideologues that these people are, they seem to not be capable of facing their own vanity and humanity and just shut up. Just. Shut. Up.

I wonder how much money has to with this. As Richard Nixon always said: "Follow the money." He was right.

Thanks for the read.

Selective capitalisim isn't new.

So if you're not green, you're not on the the Democrat's list for the Stimulus Bill cash.

If you're not shovel ready, you're definitely not on the list.

If your management consists mainly of white males, you're probably never going to be in the running.

If your company sends your customer service operations overseas and you're not Google or some big outfit like them, you can kiss any chance of receiving guvment moolah goodbye.

If you own a small business and live in California you will realize nothing in the way of a surplus because the unique taxation that the state throws on its business people will eat away at profits and their ability to maintain.

In other words, nothing is new here, except the political correctness of this revolution.

We'll see how many jobs are actually created in the long run, say in two years.

Thanks for the read.

Obama's transparency: Stimuluswatch.org

Before you join the other 71% who are looking to queue up for the mark of the beast--President Obama is an righteous communicator after all--take a look at Stimuluswatch.org.

Prepare to be amazed at the sheer volume of the Stimulus Package the Congress is about to implement. Moreover, this site is so humongo, one must endure a tutorial to take advantage of its capabilities. Critically speaking, the site navigates well and is straight forward enough for the layman, although I only spent about an hour there. It seems to have other attributes which is suggested in a more intensive tutorial than the basics introductory one, in which I participated. It will become a key management and process tool.

Dial in the city/state and voila, up pop projects (updated every ten-minutes) within that Democrat stimulus bill that they couldn't wait to pass because they had vacations to take and slopes to ski.

That ten million dollars put aside for the Santa Cruz, CA tannery shack that will provide 20 jobs? For ten million dollars? That's in there too. That's about $1/2 million per job. For a guy to skin a cow and then hang the hide up to dry? Wow. That's expensive for just killing a cow. I guess you'd have to feed the cow...

People like you and I also get to vote on the project's "importance" or priority. The word they use is "critical." That's part of the updating function. I doubt that can be legit, though. Who's to keep a labor union from having their people vote early and often? How can you track something like that?

I wasn't surprised to locate the infamous zillion dollar bullet train from LA to Vegas, while Detroit stays in the 20th century with a pittance of help--a measly $2 billion. Californians voted that idea down, by referendum last November. However, someone must have "reasoned," probably those lobbyists for the service unions, that zillions of people travel to Vegas from LA. That same Someone had better call Steve Wynn and remind him to build still another empty hotel next year for no one to stay in.

No doubt we'll pay for that too somehow. People like Steve Wynn always seem to get breaks from the government.

Of course, while going through this elaborate website one expects to find the earmarked ACORN bucks (I've read there are four billion of them) we've heard so much about during the Obama campaign hidden somewhere. I found them in a category called CDBG (Community Development Block Grants). That's Organizer Speak for over-the-top tax dollars for what they do best: develop blocks of voters by communities, usually in the form of labor unions which usually turn on the thing they claim to love the most--democracy--and they do so in the most tiresome third world, po' me style. These folks have the worst opinion of true democracy, something I've never quite understood. Why do they leave their countries of origin only to reinstate their old political styles? They also vote early and often, in absentia, posthumously.

Obviously, there are many good projects, but hold your sides as you peruse the Table of Contents. Another interesting experiment is to locate your town and determine how "heads up" your local politicians are in the money grab. My little town is so out of touch that there isn't one request; however, the up and coming little town nine miles south and recently named one of the top ten places to live in the US by a respected mag had ten projects on the books!

Now, don't get me wrong. More power to Barack Obama if he can accomplish even half of what he promises. After all, President Obama could sell a ham sandwich at a bar mitzvahs, but even he has will have to talk awfully pretty when the Pelosi/Reid pork starts smelling up the place.

Thanks for the read.