Tuesday, December 20, 2011

And the winner is …

This race was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. And what are we to learn from our new reindeer overlords? Might I remind them that while they may enslave us all and have us toil deep into their grassy web, that people will still need entertainment in the form of witty banter involving any and all ungulates.

No race had more drama or was more entertaining than this one in 2011. The indifference these ungulates exhibited was only rivaled by their bastard horse cousins. Well, no horse wanted to win more than Shackleford, so I excuse him. He’ll go down as one of those gutsy sons-of-guns that I’ll be able to watch again and again. Watch the way he lowers his head.

This year has left horse racing no reason to wake up in the morning. Poor Jeannine Edwards. She was handed the burden of hosting the Eclipse Awards in a year that deserves no memorial.

The sad thing is awards will be handed out without a sense of irony. The Eclipse Awards will be worth watching (if they’re worth watching in the first place) if it were tongue-in-cheek. The racing product reeked so bad an elephant would forget them.

A racing year like the one we’ve had does little renew one’s spirits. Does anyone really care who’s coming back from the older division? Animal Kingdom? Royal Delta (I’m admittedly interested in RD)? Havre de Grace? Stay Thirsty? What better time than now to hold the first — and last — Carryover Awards? Which I will call ... the Carryover Awards.

Horse of the Year: Rapid Redux. Go on, read the sixty-three posts I’ve written about this horse.

Champion Trainer: David Wells, trainer of Rapid Redux. When was the last time an “elite” trainer kept a horse sound for more than eight races? Wells has kept Rapid Redux sound for 21 wins in a row.

Best Illustration of what Slot Machines can do for your image: Aqueduct. You can’t really make fun of Aqueduct any more and that’s because poor people with little hope for a better tomorrow go crazy for the ting-a-ling of a video lottery terminal (when’s the next bus heading down to Ozone Park?). Racing gets a sliver of the slot revenue, but it’s like cheesecake— it’s so rich a sliver is all it needs.

Champion Disappointers: The Three-Year-Old Colts. None of them could string together consecutive grade 1 wins. This isn’t the NFL. There’s no parity in the Triple Crown. Every big race anointed a new “freak.” Animal Kingdom! Shackleford! Ruler on Ice! Coil! Stay Thirsty!

Best Performance by a Jockey: Chris McCarron on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. Host Peter Sagal, who is one of the funniest and sharpest comedians and hosts, came unraveled a bit while interviewing McCarron, mainly because Sagal knows as much about horse racing as I do about comedy. He said that McCarron had once ridden a Triple Crown winner. McCarron corrected him. Still, when asked if McCarron was frustrated when the horse got all the credit he said, “Yeah! They’re bred to run! I’m not bred to ride!”

Best Tim Tebow Impersonation: Drosselmeyer. Let’s face it, Drosselmeyer has no ability, is likely left handed and devoutly religious, scrambles for his dear life, has as good an arm as Tebow, is equally loved and loathed by John Elway, and keeps the game just close enough to win in the final strides. You’ve heard of Tebow Time. Now it’s “My race horse has a first name: it’s D-R-O-S-S-E-L-M-E-Y-E-R.” Ah, forget it.

Best Storm: Hurricane Irene. Cancelled a day of racing at Saratoga and a book signing for yours truly. The racing I can understand, but when a storm got a venue to nix a signing of Six Weeks in Saratoga, you better hope it tore down a covered bridge or two. That’s because it did.

Best Impersonation of an Elite Filly: Havre de Grace. Maybe she was tired from her epic Delaware Cap, or maybe she’s just not as flashy, or maybe she watched too many hours of “Grumpier Old Men,” but HdG’s win in the Woodward seemed about as fun as watching Birdstone beat Smarty Jones.

Best Athletic Performance: These reindeer. You gotta watch it again.

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