Flatter: There is a slice of madness available at Keeneland
It is nice to walk into a racetrack without feeling the needfor a hard hat or a reinforced insurance policy.
Keeneland brings with it that feeling that before a piece oftrash hits the ground, there is someone there to intercept it as if DanielJones or Jimmy Garoppolo discarded it. Wasn’t that the old legend about thelate Dick Duchossois snapping up worthless betting slips when he ran Arlington?That was a rueful sigh you just heard.
On the quiet eve Thursday of what will be a crackling openingday, Keeneland is like Pinehaven, that fictitious slice of sultry suburbia inthe movie “Body Heat.” As Ned told Matty, it looks “well tended.” And me, thegambler in waiting? “I need tending.” Cue the saxophone in the band shell.
The feel of Keeneland goes beyond thenot-a-hair-out-of-place trappings that are immaculate right down to the nine-lettertopiaries on either side of the toteboard. Imagine what it would cost to fix amisspelling on those.
Which brings us at last to the object of the game this week.Of the 15 Breeders’ Cup automatic win-and-you’re-in, lose-and-we’ll-let-you-knowqualifiers left in the U.S., eight are at Keeneland on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
If the Breeders’ Cup is our sport’s version the NCAATournament, then the 10 days from last Friday to the end of this weekend are likechampionship weeks.
Seemingly under construction as long as it took to build theSecond Avenue subway in Manhattan, Churchill Downs last weekend was like aconference tournament that was shoved to one side of an indoor football stadium.You can play in the corner, but don’t mess up our nice carpet.
Santa Anita would be the equivalent of the Pac-2 Tournament beingplayed at the same place the Final Four was going to be a few weeks later. It isnice and all, but being there now has all the warmth of going to a preseasonfootball game the week before the sold-out opener in the same joint.
Belmont at Aqueduct is the stunt double for the Big East Tournamentat Madison Square Garden, especially since they are from roughly the same era.Think about that. The current grandstand at the Big A has been around nineyears longer than the oldest arena in the NBA.
Having Gulfstream Park host the freshly demoted, Grade 3 PrincessRooney Stakes this weekend for a spot in the Filly & Mare Sprint feels abit like moving the Maui Invitational from the fall to the spring. It seemedmore hale and hearty as a stakes respite during the dog days of the SouthFlorida’s schvitz-bath summer.
Then there is Keeneland, where there will be more people onthe grounds on any given race day this week than at a Tampa Bay Rays playoffgame. And there will be no grousing that these race cards were scheduled at thelast minute in mid-afternoon on a work day when traffic was tough and a bridgewas out and the stadium was an indoor dump in a less-than-desirableneighborhood that is hard to get to just to see something that was not theseventh game of the World Series on a day when it was nicer to go to the beach.Seriously, Pimlico ought to ship the annual alibi breakfast to St. Petersburg,Fla.
The storylines coming out of Keeneland this week have thefeel of something strictly old school. That would be good, old school.
Bango, trained by popular Kentucky trainer Greg Foley, willtry to prove he is a legitimate player in the Phoenix (G2). Brightwork and V V’sDream look to match the hype Tamara got in California when they go in theAlcibiades (G1). In Italian will be odds-on and looking for revenge against Diana(G1) winner Whitebeam in the First Lady (G1). Locked could make his case to be away-too-early favorite for the Kentucky Derby by winning the Breeders’ Futurity(G1). Charlie Appleby tries to check another U.S. trophy on a flight back toEngland, this time with Master Of The Seas in the Turf Mile (G1). Nest tries toget even for her loss to Personal Ensign (G1) winner Idiomatic when they renewtheir rivalry in the Spinster (G1).
That paragraph was mouth-wateringly thick enough to matchthe corned-beef sandwiches they sell in the paddock carvery.
Any of those narratives would be worthy of all the attentionin any given week. That they come together on three days’ worth of races atKeeneland make this week feel like a trip to the ACC Tournament, if only wewere not in SEC country.
What the spring and fall calendars at this track do isprovide both a prelude and an encore for the meets at Saratoga and Del Mar. Sooften it is said those two months on either side of the country are the truecelebrations of this sport, and that they remind us racing still can be vital.What Keeneland does is teach us it does have to be just in the summer.
There is merit to the argument that racing would be a bettersport if it were contracted. Keep Saratoga and Del Mar and Keeneland and theirlike, but rid us of those meets where there are not enough horses to race, notenough bettors to prevent shallow pools and not enough attention to warrant anykind of mainstream care.
The problem with that argument is the same as the thoughtthat college basketball is only worthwhile come championship weeks andtournament time. Without the thousands of games that come through the winter atschools that may envy a gathering the size of a Rays baseball crowd, therewould be no context to the big games that define the madness of March.
The same goes for racing. Without the maiden and claimingand allowance races that are the other-thans that fill the condition books and overnights,the stakes would be nothing more than all-comers contests.
So enjoy the feast of races we are about to experience thisweek and then again next month in the Breeders’ Cup. If we can get Bill Rafteryto growl “horse to horse” the way he growls “man to man,” it would make for a wonderfulkeynote.
Oh, yes. It is worth remembering that after all the bigstakes races are run this week, Keeneland does have an eight-race card Wednesdayfeaturing a $110,000 turf allowance. It will not be at the high level of thisweekend, but the bourbon bread pudding will taste just as good. And a 10-1 shotpays just as much in a claiming race as it does in the Turf Mile.
