Nobody ever won an Eclipse Award staying at one track.*

With that mantra in mind, I am loading up and shipping south.

Friday, I will be at Indiana Downs, followed by excursions to Ellis Park, Lexington, Kentucky and River Downs. Unless the Indiana slots take all my money right off the bat, this road trip will rule. Expect recounts of my travels whenever I find the time to write.

While we are on the subject of ship-ins, Chicago-based rider, and star of Animal Planet’s reality series “Jockeys,” Brandon Meier brought home one winner from two starts on Tuesday’s card. Meier found the winner’s circle in a 6 3/4 length victory aboard Heaven’s Flame in race eight. His other start was a second-to-last effort aboard Crystal Mast in the sixth race.

Behind the jump is a reader-contributed photo of Meier during his visit to Pinnacle Race Course.

* I don’t have the time or initiative to verify this. I wouldn’t doubt someone in the history of the awards took home the prize having only raced at one track, but in general, champions are encouraged to take their games on the road.

So said the Fordham Flash, baseball Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch, sometime around 1935. Which almost makes it sound as if the good Jesuits at Fordham were churning out classes of Dizzy Dean-wannabes in the early part of the last century.

Nonetheless, the reason he would have said such a slightly off-kilter thing in 1935 was because that was the year the Cincinnati Reds, in their electrified Crosley Field, played the first night baseball game, against Philadelphia. By 1941, most major league teams had begun playing night games, and though World War II prevented some clubs from hopping on the bandwagon, virtually all had by the late 1940s. (Except for the Cubs, who held out until 1988).

Playing games at night revolutionized baseball and helped cement our national love affair with the game. It allowed the working man — it was widely assumed that the fan was a man (sample grab from the New York Mets’ theme song: “Bring your kiddies and your wife, guaranteed to have the time of your life!”) — to attend games, rather than merely listening to them.

These days, the vast majority of major league games are at night. And attendance has climbed from a shade under 6,000 per game in 1935 to about 30,000 per game today.

Coincidentally — or perhaps not so — the attendance at Churchill Downs for its three recent Fridays of night racing averaged almost exactly 30,000.

Which is another way of saying that it has taken racing about 74 years to discover — and, surely, that’s the wrong word — that scheduling races at a time convenient to fans is a way to encourage more of them to come out.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Seventy-four years is a long time, and a lot of things have happened since then: the US population has more than doubled, as has the number of teams in Major League Baseball. Wars, technological innovations, natural disasters, and economic dislocation have all left searing marks on our world.

And, now, at long last, a major racetrack has introduced night racing.

Truly, the wheels of change oft grind slowly — but this is ridiculous.

On the other hand, it whets your appetite for what comes next. I’ve heard of this newfangled thing called a television that lets you watch actual moving pictures right inside your home. Maybe we could get some races on that…

Gamadongja at Seoul / Gaeseon Janggun at Busan
The weekend is almost upon us once more and racing returns to the peninsula on Friday when the action will be at Busan. Seoul and Jeju take over on Saturday, before all three tracks host a card on Sunday.

Namdo Jijon and Sinheung Gangja head Friday’s feature race at Busan. Annika Queen and Rainmaker will also be lining up alongside them. On Sunday, another of last year’s Classic Winners, Gaeson Janggun will be in action, taking on a field of foreign bred horses including Bugyeong Choegang. Namdo Jeap took on the imports last week and won and the field that Gaeseon Janggun will face is less than intimidating.

Seoul’s feature race is on Sunday and it features a number of the track’s best imports. Seoul Teukgeup tops the weights and will be up against Dankee’s Pal, who beat Bally Brae last time out. Also going are Gamadongja and Brilliant Knight, as well as last year’s top imported two year old, Bulpae Gisang.

Busan Race Park

Friday July 10: 11 races, first post 12:30
Sunday July 12: 6 races, first post 12:40

Seoul Race Park

Saturday July 11: 12 races, first post 11:20
Sunday July 12: 11 races, first post 11:20

There is racing at Jeju Race Park on Saturday and Sunday with the first coming under orders at 12:10 on both days.

Thursday saw some crazy rain across the Korean peninsula which has stopped now in Seoul and should hold off for Friday and Sunday. Currently the monsoon is forecast to be back with a vengeance on Sunday. Come racing – but bring an umbrella!

Murph causes a bit of a stir in the post parade with Angel Stanley aboard.

Great expectations often lead to great disappointment.

After drumming up public support from local sources including track announcer Matt Hook and further-reaching national sources off a strong second place effort last time out, Mrs. Murphy failed to deliver, turning in a fourth-place effort on Friday.

Murph’s race was the first one of the day, so I made the 2 1/2 hour drive in record time and got to the track about an hour and a half before the first post. This left plenty of time for a marathon’s worth of nervous pacing.

After a while, the National Anthem started to play from the PA system. Already a bundle of nerves, hearing the Star Spangled Banner brought to the surface years of repressed memories surrounding the tense moments before participating in an athletic competition. Like Pavlov’s dogs, the Anthem has always been a sign for me that it was time to uncoil on some unsuspecting rival. I began to bounce on the balls of my feet, waiting for the song to be over so it could be game time. It took some effort to bring myself down from this, and the adrenaline rush didn’t fully go away until well after the race had concluded, but a few shaky shots with my camera got me balanced enough to function properly.

Shortly after the Anthem concluded, Hook and wandering mutuel teller/handicapper Andrea Ritter began their pre-race prediction show. Both analysts picked Murph to win. The combination of background noise in the tent where I was watching the broadcast and the intermittent roar of airplanes passing overhead kept me from hearing most of what the two had to say about Mrs. Murphy, but ultimately, Murph’s #6 at the top of their selections was all that mattered. The public stepped up to support Mrs. Murphy as well, sending her off as the second choice at 2.10-to-one

As this was going on, the field began coming over to the paddock. Last race, I searched for the distinctive star on her forehead to separate her from the crowd, only to find she already had her blinkers on. This time, I searched for the silver and blue blinkers and instead found the star. 

While the horses were led around the paddock, Hook began to speculate as to whom Mrs. Murphy was named after. He then told an anecdote about a Mrs. Murphy he knew from Thistledown and wondered aloud if she was the namesake. Then, after reviewing the program, he realized her co-breeder was John Murphy, my grandpa. Mystery solved.

Unlike her two previous starts, Murph went through the whole pre-race process without spending time on two legs. She continued being reasonably well-behaved throughout the post parade. 

It seems as though that spell of good behavior ended at the gates. The horses were loading on the other side of the track, so my point of view was not the greatest, but with only Murph left to load, I saw her rider, Angel Stanley, dismount. Rarely is this a good sign. She loaded in by herself and Stanley got back on. 

Mrs. Murphy broke from the outside post and spent most of the race hung out in no man’s land. She was forwardly placed in third, but not as close to the leaders as she was in previous starts. 

In Murph’s three races at Pinnacle, the turning point each time has been the…um…turn. Three races ago, she went backwards and faded to last. Two starts ago, she accelerated en route to a second place finish. This time, she did something in between, running with the pack and lacking a late bid. She crossed the line fourth, about three lengths behind the winner, first-time starter Sinful Eyes.

To help express what was going on inside my head in the moments following the race, I would now like to introduce my special guest, international movie star, and Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader…

Thank you, Mr. Vader.

She appeared to come back just fine, so the performance probably can not be blamed on a physical issue. Sometimes it just isn’t a horse’s day. Perhaps last Friday wasn’t Murph’s. 

If one positive came out of this race, the fourth place finish ought to drive her odds back up to a more profitable level, so when she does finish first, I’ll be able to afford a good meal on the way home (Fowlerville Farms, here I come).

We’ll get ‘em next time.

Behind the jump are a few pictures from Mrs. Murphy’s race…

No doubt there’s truth in this analysis. The game would be better if Jess Jackson’s decision to keep Curlin in training for his four year-old season had occasioned a fleeting “of course he did” smile, rather than the “he did what?!?!” shock and awe it actually engendered — were that decision, in other words, more common.

And, as I’ve observed elsewhere, there’s no denying that the once-marquee dirt handicap division is currently in shambles, with a bunch of Grade 3 type horses trading victories against each other. Just as some years in the vineyards produce better wines than others, 2009 will leave us all with a vinegary taste in our mouths as we consider the undistinguished winners of such great races as the Stephen Foster and the Suburban.

Still, racing’s lack of identifiable stars has more than a little to do with our sport’s failure to identify as a “star” any horse other than one who raced successfully in a Triple Crown event. Fact is, even we race fans have a curious form of myopia, in which early-developing, dirt-racing horses are the only stars that matter. We may talk about the old days and the iron geldings, but there’s not much evidence we’d pay attention to them if they came around again.

A perfect example of that came on Saturday at Monmouth, when Presious Passion, a gelded son of Royal Anthem, delivered the 12th win of his terrific career in his signature front-running style.

After watching him smash English Channel’s course record by nearly two seconds, it’s safe to say one thing about Presious Passion: This is a horse that deserves to be a star. He’s made nearly 40 career starts, half of them in graded stakes company. He’s won seven graded races, including the United Nations (G1), now two years running, and almost two million dollars. He is in the best form of his life, having finished first or second in six consecutive starts. He’s as sound as you could hope for, having made 11 starts last year, as a five year-old, and already five this year.

He’s exciting to watch, able to dole out ridiculously fast early fractions while nevertheless reserving some for the stretch run; in Saturday’s U.N., he zipped a half in 45 1/5 seconds and three quarters in 1:09 4/5, while opening a staggering 20-length advantage. Yet he still had plenty left to hold late-running Lauro safe, winning by two while getting the last three-eighths in a shade over 36 seconds.

Plus, he’s as game as can be. In his prep for the U.N., the Monmouth Stakes in June, he opened a long lead, was passed by Proudinsky in the stretch — falling a length behind that one — before rallying to retake first and win the race.

His owners, the Generazios, are successful breeders and racers but don’t seem like the type to call attention to themselves. Trainer Mary Hartmann has five wins this year, and three of them belong to Presious Passion.

In fact, there’s nothing not to like about this horse.

So, why don’t we care?

For one thing, he’s a turf runner, and while Americans tolerate turf, it’s not really our bag. We expect our stars to run on real dirt, and we pretty much ignore horses that don’t.

Moreover, Presious Passion has been a little late to develop. He didn’t break his maiden until March of his three year-old season, and that against claiming company. He won only a single minor stake as a three year-old and didn’t score in graded company until September of his four year-old season — long past the time when stars are made. His five year-old season was better still, and his six year-old season looks likely to be the best of his career.

Even bettors, usually a more reliable barometer, are repeatedly, almost doggedly, wrong about this horse. In the Monmouth Stakes, he went off at the absurdly high price of 6.40-1. In Saturday’s U.N., he was a more sensible 2.70-1 but still, inexplicably, not the favorite.

It’s as if we don’t know what to make of a horse who didn’t get really good until he turned five.

Don’t get me wrong: Presious Passion isn’t going to be on anybody’s list of all-time great horses (at least not yet, but if he keeps improving, who knows?). But in a sport where we all bemoan the lack of top-class horses who race past their three year-old season, maybe we ought to take a harder look at a still-improving, sound-as-can-be, grass horse whose connections treat him like what he is — a racehorse, bred to run — rather than a hothouse flower.

He is, in fact, exactly what we all say racing needs. Which leads to a thought: Maybe some of racing’s lack of star power isn’t the lack of stars so much as our own failure to recognize real stars in our midst.

“Who,” I asked?

“You know,” the parishioner said. “Like the Kentucky Derby winner, with a “de” in front.”

Right. 2005. $102.60. Got it. Welcome, Father Derby.

Former Champion battled back from likely career-ending injury
It didn’t seem possible but the “White Light” could be just days away from returning to racing. Champion three year old of 2006, Baekgwang, is amongst the early entries for the SBS Cup which will be run at Seoul Race Park on Sunday July 19.

It took Baekgwang [The Groom is Red - Grey Crest (Gold Crest)] three races to break his maiden and after showing promise in the early part of his three year old season, he was beaten into third place in the 2006 Korean Derby by 85/1 outsider Baengnokjeong . Following this, he embarked on a golden late summer and autumn, landing the Munhwa Ilbo and Donga Ilbo Cups in quick succession before going to claim the Minister’s Cup, the final leg of the Triple Crown, in October that year.

His form would continue into 2007 in which he won his first four outings. With his distinctive light grey coat and his come from behind running style, which made for some thrilling finishes, he was a firm favourite of the racing public – even if his tendency to lay-in in the home straight was maddening for some punters. With J.S. Hold dominating the three year old ranks that year a likely season ending showdown between the two in the 2007 Grand Prix, looked set to be Korean racing’s most hotly anticipated race in history.

Neither of them would make it there. An already less than fully fit J.S. Hold would suffer a career ending injury in the process of making history in the Minister’s Cup by winning Korea’s first Triple Crown. Meanwhile Baekgwang suffered an injury in September that would keep him off the track until April of 2008. His return came in the Ttukseom Cup. Coming through late as ever, he hit the front with 150 metres left to run only for Namchonuijijon, a contemporary of J.S. Hold, to come through even later to pip him him on the line. After the race, it emerged Baekgwang had suffered ligament damage to his right foreleg. Automatically stood down by the stewards for a minimum one year, it seemed his career was over.

Sent to Jeju Island for recuperation, Baekgwang underwent a series of reportedly pioneering operations and, to the surprise of many, returned to his box at Seoul Race Park earlier this year. He began working out in May and, on June 12, breezed through an official race trial over five furlongs and was given the all clear to race again. Baekgwang now finds himself entered in the SBS Cup, a race won by his little sister Baekpa last year.

If he makes it to the starting gate, he is once again likely to find himself once again alongside Namchonuijijon as well as Natural Nine and Sports Chosun winner Wangson. For race fans, whether he wins or loses, seeing a fit Baekgwang once again is going to raise smiles and bring back memories. All will hope he comes back to the barn safely this time. We’ll have a full preview of the SBS Cup – with or without Baekgwang – on Thursday next week. In the meantime, here is Baekgwang’s biggest victory, the 2006 Minister’s Cup: