Saturday:

 Juvenile Turf  for Colts: 

1)      Pounced – 7 furlongs in 1:19.4 – are you kidding me!

2)      Buzzword – I’m picking Europe 1-2 here

3)      Bridgetown – even with a third, Robert Landry would earn $12,500 Turf Sprint: 

1)      Lord Shanakill – set up perfectly to score here

2)      Desert Call – great at the distance

3)      Gotta Have Her – loves this track; loves this distance  Sprint:

1)      Fatal Bullet – Da Silva wishes everybody “Good Luck!”

2)      Fleeting Spirit – is she as good on the synthetic as she’s been on the lawn?

3)  Crown of Thorns – the surprise in a surprisingly small field Juvenile Dirt for Colts: 

1)      Beethoven – headline writers will conduct a masterpiece

2)      Alfred Nobel – Europe will run 1-2 here as well

3)      D’Funnybone – getting better every race Mile Turf: 

1)      Zacinto – last in the alphabet, first in the Mile

2)      Goldikova – because it’s fun to bet against the heavy favourite

3)      Delegator – North American horses won’t hit the board Dirt Mile:

1)      Bullsbay – got within 2 lengths of Rachel Alexandra last time

2)      Mastercraftsman – successfully tested Polytrack

3)      Pyro – should cash something in a weak field

  Turf Mile and a Half: 

1)      Conduit – last year’s champ here 2 GR 1 wins and $3 Million at the distance

2)      Presious Passion  - his 42^nd race – 13 wins on the turf

3)      Red Rocks – is he as good as he was when he won this in 2006?  Classic:

1)      Rip Van Winkle – huge figures in England

2)      Summer Bird – can he handle the Pro Ride?

3)      Mine That Bird – will win an Eclipse if he wins this

Breeders’ Cup Picks:

  Friday The Marathon: 

I love the two European imports:

1) Mastery – He’s had just eight races and has improved with each one…won his last race at a 1 3/8ths

2) Father Time – Also lightly raced ( only 7 starts), beat a field of 15 in his only race on synthetic dirt

3) Cloudy’s Knight – the 2007 Canadian International shocker will be running for the 39^th time

 Juvenile Fillies Turf: 

1)      Junia Tepzia – only two races in her life, but she won each and her Racing Post Rating puts the Beyers of everyone in this race to shame

2)      Lillie Langtry – a two year-old with almost a $million earned.

3)      Tapitsfly – Only race on the turf was impressive

 Juvenile Fillies Dirt: 

1)      Sara Louise – ready to break through here

2)      Seventh Street – two grade 1 wins already

3)      Ventura – apparently, she can win on any surface

 Filly and Mare Turf: 

1)      Forever Together – the defending champion

2)      Midday  - shortly after noon, she should run well

3)      Magical Fantasy – four race win streak will be snapped

 Filly and Mare Sprint: 

1)      Informed Decision – has won 7 of her last 8 races

2)      Seventh Street – she’s getting better each time out

3)      Ventura – great horse, this is probably the toughest field she’s ever faced

 Ladies Classic:  

1)      Careless Jewel – did you see her in the Alabama? ‘Nuff said!

2)      Life is Sweet  - at least she doesn’t have to run against stablemate Zenyatta

3)      Music Note – May not love the Pro Ride

Ok, got that out of my system. Now let’s get ready for the Breeders’ Cup. Here’s a question - have they undermined the effectiveness of the Breeders’ Cup by putting 7 more races on Friday. I’m saying yes  because I’ve lost track of what horses are running in what races. It’s all great racing, to be sure and the field will be full of talented horses and jockeys, but it feels diluted to me. Kind of like making the World Series a best of 11.

 I’m sure the Canadian connections of ten horse don’t necessarily share my concerns. Any time you get to run for a $ million or more, there’s little to complain about. The wonderful filly Careless Jewel gets a break when she runs in the $2 million Ladies Classic at a mile and an 8th on Friday because the unbeaten Zenyatta has chosen to take on the boys in the mile and a quarter Classic the next day. Careless Jewel will be ridden by Robert Landry and there is no better human being on the planet who would deserved to win a Breeders Cup race. Careless Jewel comes in on a five race win streak; she won the Fitz Dixon Cotillion at Philadelphia on October 4 after her brilliant 11-length conquest of the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga in August.

Landry also gets the call on Bridgetown , Eugen Melnyk’s excellent two year-old colt. Bridgetown won the Grade 3 Summer Stakes by a lengths and a half and will run on Friday in one of the new races, the Juvenile Colts Turf.

Square Eddy, unable to run  in the Queen’s Plate because of injury will represent Paul Reddam in either the Dirt Sprint or the Turf Sprint.  Square Eddy, a son of the great stallion Smart Strike was second in the Juvenile race last year. Reddam has also entered veteran Red Rocks in the Turf, a race Red Rocks won in 2006.

Jockey Eurico Rosa da Silva has two very strong chances for his first BC victory. He’ll ride the four year-old Fatal Bullet in the Spring on Saturday. Da Silva has had the pleasure of firing Fatal  Bullet to an impressive win in the Phoenix Stakes at Keeneland on October 9. da Silva will also ride Biofuel, which like Fatal Bullet is trained by Reade Baker. Biofuel, a two year old filly will try and parlay her win in the Grade 3 Mazarine Stakes into a greater win in the BC Juvenile Fillies at a mile and a sixteenth.

You don’t have to be a genius to think Frank Stronach has a shot in the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Einstein, though to win, he’ll have to pin Zenyatta with her first career loss.

Mine That Bird, Canada’s two year-old champion, who has not won since the Kentucky Derby has been entered into the Classic

Trainer Steve Asmussen will be sending Jungle Tale to the Juvenile Fillies Turf and the  Ontario bred Bickerson, a two year-old filly who has been racing in California will take her best shot in the Juvenile Fillies race.

Friday and Saturday - my confusion notwithstanding will be two long days of great betting on amazing fields for huge amounts of money, Trust me, there will be some wild payoffs, a lot of horse wearing 11, 12 ,13 and 14 on their saddle cloths hitting the board, and somewhere in there ( my prediction) a win by a Canadian horse and a Woodbine based jockey. 

It was, at best, a mixed experience. I did hit a lot of doubles and some paid really well, but at the end of the 50 days, I had lost $200, which reinforces the idea that gambling on anything is usually a losing proposition.

My experience yesterday, does show that there is still much more value in betting on the horses than anything else. I spent $16 on proline - four tickets, $4 each. I took the Phillies to win and the Sabres-Devils to go under, but I liked the Sharks-Kings to go over ( 2-1 San Jose).  Even if I’d been right, my payoff for $4 would have been $30, or less than 8-1.

I was also betting the races last night, and after hitting a tiny double at Woodbine ( $20) and a puny exactor in the 3rd ( $15),  I like Emma-Jayne Wilson on Mrs. Cleaver in the fourth. I hit her win and place and had the exactor ($44.80) for a buck. That was worth more than $50 to me, but it was the sixth race that really enriched me. Steve Bahen is not the most successful jockey; he’s not even in Woodbine’s top ten (he’s 17th). But don’t interpret that as indicating he’s not a very good rider. I’ve had an amazing year betting Bahen in 2009. I hit him twice on a horse called I’m a Moon Too; 17-1 the first time, 30-1 the second time. So every time I’,m betting Woodbine and I see Bahen on a horse, I try and make an argument for him.  In the sixth last night, he was on Reel Tipsy, a 19-1 shot. Except Reel Tipsy looked to me as if it had a real shot. It was shortening up, had only 5 lifetime races and all of her finishes compared reasonably with the more heavily bet horses in the race. I bet Reel Tipsy $4 wp and in $1 exactors with several horses. Bahen rode her perfectly, staying towards the inside down the backstretch and when he decided to split horses in deep stretch, the filly had plenty of run, hitting the wire a good half length ahead of the heavy favourite San Souci. I got back $110 for my win/place and another $70 because the exactor was a pumped up $141, a wonderful payoff with the 6-5 favourite second in a 7-horse field.

Anyway, the point is…I cashed almost $200 and wasn’t required to pick three outcomes - just one forthe win/place and two for the exactor. For the billionth time, betting on the races proves to be more profitable than betting on lotteries.

This is a funny time of year for the horses. While the Breeders’ Cup is just a few days away, many of the very good horses have accomplished all they’re going to do and you have horses going in different directions. Many in a field will be all used up, while a few may be under-raced and much fresher than the others. This is the time of the year where a player should be especially sceptical of a favourite. Last night at Woodbine, only one horse scored as the choice.

oh..in the last race ( after I’d fallen asleep), Bahen brought in Toodle Oo at 7.35-1, finishing off a late double that was worth $178.

I think that makes my point.   

For example, last Saturday at Woodbine was important on both the Thoroughbred and Standardbred fronts. Woodbine had three huge Turf races, all with Breeders’ Cup implications. The fantastic Champs Elysees put a huge exclamation mark on his career with a monster charge down the stretch to gobble up the field in the $2 million Pattison International. This mile and a half turf test was a Breeders’ Cup ‘Win and You’re In’ race, but Champs Elysees owners rewarded the colt by announcing his retirement. Capturing the Pattison won’t hurt his stud fees at all.

The mile and a quarter E.P. Taylor Stakes had one of those “what the’ finishes when 44-1 shot Lahaleeb won by almost two lengths dropping the collective jaws of most of the bettors who silently ( or otherwise) were sticking a common profanity after  “what the..” 

 The other turf Stakes on Saturday was the Nearctic, a six furlong spring and Field Commission scored for local trainer Danny Vella. Field Commission went off at 5.6-1, somewhat of a short price considering he had never won before on the grass. Local horse, Bogue Chitto, ridden by Gerry Olguin might have appeared to be in over his head with this group, but he came second at 21-1 .

When the Saturday thoroughbred races were over, Woodbine became a harness palace again, with three elimination heats for the Breeders Crown races which will take place on October 24.  The delightfully named Mr. Wiggles was a 10-1 surprise winner in the pace for three year old colts and geldings. Driven brightly by Cory Callahan, Mr. Wiggles undulated to the finish line two lengths the best. It was kind of a strange elimination heat, because pacing stars Well Said and Vintage Master had already been granted byes to the $617,880 final, which meant the top 8 out of ten in this race would also advance…Must have been quite the battle for 8th place - Straight Shooting and Runaway Energy were voted off the island.

They needed two eliminations for the 3 year-old filly trotters. Elusive Desire came home first for Paul MacDonell in the first heat and it was Margarita Momma scoring easily in the second for Ron Peirce. So this Saturday there will be eight Breeders Crown races at Woodbine, each worth in excess of $600,000 and in two Saturdays hence we have the Breeders’ Cup from Santa Anita.

 If you’ve been wondering why I hadn’t submitted to this blog for two weeks (as if anyone actually reads this!), my involvement with Down The Stretch, Canada’s most informative and entertaining horse racing newspaper has really sucked all my time away recently. For reasons I can’t divulge (well, ok, Breeders Crown bought a full page in the paper and we wanted to give the maximum bang for the buck) I wanted to bring the paper out a couple days earlier than usual. That compressed the time necessary to put everything together and to do it without an ocean of typos, misspells and dangling modifiers.

Anyway, the 24th issue of Down The Stretchis now in multiple locations - the main entrance and west entrance at Woodbine, all over the backstretch, in several ’select’ off-track Champion Theatres and as usual, it’s on the internet at www.downthestretchnewspaper.com - I think I’m safe in bragging that we’re the only paper with all our editorial content on line.

In the paper you can read about how I did in my noble and historic attempt to see what would happen to one man who chose only to bet daily doubles for 50 days ( still waiting to hear from the Nobel people). There’s a two page feature on trainer Roger Attfield, one of the very finest people in the game, an update on the Fort Erie situation (deteriorating, as usual) and a full page of picks for the upcoming Breeders’ Cup. Contributor Keith McCalmont is pretty sharp when it comes to handicapping and I’ve read the odd form, but we once again brought in the world’s most horse racing knowledgeable hamster, Orbit, for his B.C Cup breakdown. When it comes to must read stuff, anybody have some carrot shavings?

And…holy crap or innuendos to that effect. People are already talking about Sea The Stars in terms of ‘best horse of the year’ and even ‘best race horse of all time’ and the mile and a half Arc does nothing to discourage that thinking. At the midway point, Jockey Mick Kinane had Sea The Stars buried in the middle of the 18 horse field; not just buried behind several horses, but pinned on the hedge and there were a couple of overly-optimistic runners who had opened up at least a dozen lengths.  Down the very long right to left stretch, Kinane manoevred Sea The Stars through the slimmest of openings and it was incredible to see how quickly they gobbled up real estate - it seemed that within a matter of strides, Sea The Stars had erupted from the pack and was in the lead, striding with authority to the finish to notch his 6th straight Group 1 win. There’s no question, this horse owns Europe - no one has touched him this year. Now he must come to Santa Anita for the Breeders’ Cup. He was the 4-5 favourite in the Arc (no small feat in an 18 horse mob) and he’d be much less than that in the Turf Classic, but if it is to be proved that he is the best horse on the planet, he needs to run in the dirt (or synthetic) Classic. That shouldn’t be a problem as the European horses are showing every year how easily they adapt to the poly or the  pro-ride. So let’s assume that Sea The Stars wins the Classic and even puts up a time under 2:00, does that make him a better horse than Rachel Alexandra (who isn’t allowed to run on fake dirt)?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

There was a very cool moment at Woodbine on Sunday. Jockey Patrick Husbands won the tenth race on Grazettes Landing, trained by Mark Casse. It was Husbands’ 2000th  career win and the guys in Woodbine’s media office just don’t miss a beat. They made sure that the landmark was celebrated - a banner proclaiming the accomplishment was already in the winners circle by the time Husbands and Grazettes Landing had trotted in  to get their pictures taken. Very appropriate that Husbands scored his 2000th on a horse trained by Casse; by Husbands’ count, he and Casse have teamed up for over 600 winners. But there was some very classy behaviour by a couple of other jockeys. You need to know that when these moments occur - a special win by a jockey - there is just a minute or two to organize a picture and jockeys can be running back to get changed and especially so after the final race on the card.

But there was both Todd Kabel and Jim McAleney smiling in the picture on behalf of the rider who had just beaten them. Kabel is back riding brilliantly this year, hopefully a lengthy respite from the on-going battle he has with his weight and he owns the record of 193 wins for a year of riding at Woodbine. Husbands’ victory on Grazettes Landing was his 132nd of the season and, mathematically, he’s on pace to break Kabel’s record by maybe one or two wins. It was especially interesting to see McAleney helping with the celebration. Last year Jimmy Mac had a sizeable lead in the jockeys’ race and at some point in the final two weeks, made a harmless comment to Husbands, suggesting the race was already won and Patrick should throw in the towel. Husbands repeatedly pointed out that it was that offhanded sentence that spurred him on and he won a pile of races in the final days to edge McAleney out. So, it was an act of class for McAleney to contribute to the props that Husbands received. These guys are prepared to kill each other on the racetrack, but off the poly, there is a unique bond among them.

                                       ……………………….

You may recall that a few weeks ago, I decided to take a vow of daily doubles, abandoning all other wagers and bets to focus only on doubles. Sad to report, it has not gone well. I hit some big payoffs on the first weekend of the experiment, but it’s gone very dry since then. I actually went from September 4th into Sunday, October 4 without showing a profit on any single day.

However, there has been a flicker of fortune, which I can’t really take much credit for. I bet my last $12 Sunday on the 6th race double at Santa Anita and needed the 1 or 10 to win…each finished far down the track and I turned off HPI. It wasn’t until Tuesday morning, while checking  my account online, did I realize that I’d won the double. I don’t recall betting the winner - the 5 horse - but my account seems to think I did and there was $44 just begging to be bet. I threw a few $1 doubles at the Tuesday card at Turf paradise and hit two nice doubles in a row. The first paid $88 and the second (combining a 7-1 shot with an 8-1 shot) kicked back a delightful $173. I had each for a buck, but it was still a nice and slightly lucrative break from a month of losing.

That being said, I’m still down a few hundred from the 50 days of doubles, which has just nine days left to run.    

 If I make a great comeback and show a profit for the 50 days, will the Woodbine communication guys come to my house with a celebratory banner. Will McAleney and Kabel show up for the picture?

Well, a guy can dream, can’t he? 

I had assembled a team that included 680News traffic beauty Eva Fragiskatos, Down The Stretch contributor Keith McCalmont and his soccer teammater Shayne Boyd, brought in for his Irish grass breeding. Unfortunately as unofficial captain of the 680news/Down The Stretch team, I was required to run.

As I age - I’m in year 60 now - it seems I’m developing quite the reality gap between what I think I can do and what I’m actually capable of ( though my horse betting has always been like that). My strategy this year made a lot of sense to me; because of my own inherent early speed, I should be the first out of the gate. With my remarkable immediate ‘churn’ I believed I could give our team a good start and a chance to beat the two Toronto Police Force teams and the foursome of jockeys.

I had another brilliant strategy. They actually had us coming out of a real starting gate and in each stall of the gate there are waist high ledges for the assistant starters to hold on to the horses as they load. I lifted myself onto the ledges with the intention of throwing myself out of the gate. With such a spring-loaded start, I would earn myself an even better break than all the others.

So Sandy Hawley presses the start button, the gates open and I throw myself forward. Except I land flat footed and stop dead on the grass only to see every other runner propelling several yards ahead of me. I poured it on to the best of my ability, but by the time I reached our second runner, Eva, I was gassed.  Keith and Shayne did quite well,  but I’d put my team in such a hole, we did no better than 7th…

The point here is that when we watch the races and bet on horses, we’re so pissed off when the ones we bet on fade in the stretch. We’d like to think that horses are machines, not massive structures of bone and muscle and sinew. Run down the Woodbine Stretch as fast as you can for as long as you can and then try and pass someone who is better, strong, faster than you. The lungs burn, the legs fail. maybe now you know how a horse feels.

 The race was won by one of the police teams. The jockeys came second and herein is a tip for next year. The jockeys’ team was Emma-Jayne Wilson, Eurico Rosa da Silva, Anthony Stephens and Corey Fraser. Fraser ran in the sprint just half an hour after competing in the mile and a half race, which was won impressively by Woodbine Entertainment President Nick Eaves. Fraser came in third.

Less than two hours after the people races, the night card of thoroughbred racing began and had you bet only on the jockeys from the United Way races, you would have made a nice profit. The very light Eurico Rosa da Silva captured the first race on Heavy Steve ($6.70) and came right back to win the third on Graeme Wafer ($10.50). Emma-Jayne Wilson brought home Two Wonders ($14.30) in the 4th and Corey Fraser completed his unique triactor by winning the 6th race with Genswick Park ($8.20) . Anyone astute enough to bet $100 to win on every horse ridden by the four jockeys in the United Way races would have earned a profit of $985. Anyone astute enough to bet every horse last night that I bet on would have….oh let’s not go there.

Woodbine will forthwith release the amount of money earned for the United Way. Donations were extracted from bets placed by each team on themselves. I know this from a painful personal experience - I bet $50 to show on my team, assuming wisely that my brilliant starting gate strategy would gives us an enormous edge.  In future years, I may have to seriously reconsider my position as playing captain.

The $Million Woodbine Mile was won by the five year-old Mare Ventura who kicked in down the long stretch of the E.P. Taylor Turf Course, passing 8 of 9 rivals to win by a length. The win by Ventura is the first by a female horse in the 13 year history of this race. By surging past the field in front of the grandstand, Ventura and jockey garrett Gomez set a record for the Stakes - 1:32.04.  That’s why they designed the turf course the way they did…to set up great finishes and off-the pace charges. This win got Ventura an automatic spot in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, but it appears that she will run in the Filly and Mares Sprint at seven furlongs, a race she won last year. Ventura is owned by the Juddmonte Farms who almost pulled off a wonderful double, but the stewards denied them the glory.

Earlier in the day, in the Northern Dancer Stakes - a mile and a half on the grass - Juddmonte’s Marsh Side hit the wire first, but in the last sixteenth, it was clear to all that he had come in sharply, pushing Quijano into Champs Elysee who was making what might have been a winning move along the hedge. Jockey Garett Gomez had to press on the brakes and take Champs Elysee to the middle of track, but the pinch-job cost that horse any chance of winning.

The tote board lit up right after the race; the second, third and fourth place horses - Just As Well, Quijano and Champs Elysee all expressed their unhappiness with the events in the final moments of the race ( well, actually, their jockeys did). After 15 minutes of examination, the stewards, correctly, disqualifed Marsh Side and place the late charging Just As Well on top.  That’s got to kill, seeing your horse win a $750,000 race, only to have it taken away. That being said, the stewards really had no choice.And give the winning jockey Julien Leparoux credit here. In deep stretch, he had Just As Well buried along the hedge and moments before Champs Elysee was crunched, Leparoux had the instinct tull Just As Well acutely to the right to avoid the scrum. Had he not, he never would have got his head into second place at the wire, which entitled Just As Well for the big prize when the stewards made their difficult decision. 

I stuffed my face on the Mohawk buffet the night before and watched as Muscle Hill treated the rest of the field in the Canadian Trotting Classic with disdain, winning by at least three lengths as no other horse seemed brave ( or good) enough to challenge him. Brian Sears allowed Muscle Hill to settle in fifth off the start and as soon as everyone was in single file, he moved the odds-on favourite to the outside and in a benign second quarter that was timed in :30, Sears was able to get Muscle Hill in front. From that point on, it was clear everyone else was playing for second money. Muscle Hill didn’t have to entertain anyone on the outside of him and he trotted happily down the lane to his 17th straight win and an easy $600,000. He paid just $2.20 to win and the $100,000 bet on him in place pool assured a $2.10 payoff for coming in second.

If you’ve been following my wagering adventures, you know that Saturday was day 25 of my 50 days of Doubles, a proclamation imposed on myself to bet only daily doubles. That meant I couldn’t bet the Trotting Classic, not that there was any money to be made.

As for the experiment, I’m sad to relate that I’m down about $300 in my doubles. The problem is, now that I can’ et exactors, or pick threes or win/place, I search for tracks that allow doubles and I’ve been making bets at Fairplex and Philadelphia, and Mountaineer when I might normally ignore tracks like that.

Anyway, I still have almost a month to redeem myself parimutuelly. 

My piece is more or less a side bar to the report on Careless Jewel, the Josie Carroll trained filly who smashed the field in the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes a couple weeks ago at Saratoga. Careless Jewel was ridden by the 46 year-old Landry who was thrilled to win for the first time at the historic racetrack. Considering that just six days earlier, Landry had won four races on the same card at Woodbine, I decided the timing was right for a full page on Landry.

He does’nt exactly fit the mold of many jockeys ( not that you can easily generalize the jockey culture).  First of all, as Landry pointed out, he’s the only rider born and raised in Toronto and maybe that’s the key here.  There is just something so decent, so Canadian, so un-screwed up about Landry.

He doesn’t smoke and most assuredly he has no alcohol or substance issues. I was talking to him about my use of pot in the 70s and he barely seemed to grasp the idiom (I was explaining how to clean an ounce of pot by letting the seeds roll down a board and he just stared at me wide-eyed). Landry has a real love of animals. He serves as a director of Longrun which finds homes for retired horses, he and his wife Samantha own three cats and he even takes care of a squirrel that he found floating in a pond barely alive several weeks ago.

His house in Nobleton down the scenic 16th sideroad is a clear reflection of who he is. There is, not surprisingly, seemingly endless racing references on the walls - beautiful prints of historic racing oil paintings and countless pictures of the jockey in the winners circle. Landry recently passed the 2,000 win plateau for his career and on one long spacious wall in his den, he has the winners circle picture from every Stakes race he’s ever won. Since the records show that Landry has captured 162 added money events,  this particular wall of fame is spectacular.

Landry has completely and almost single-handedly rebuilt his home from the inside, putting up new door frames and windows and shelving. The original floor was a faded green linoleum; he put down elegant tiles and warm wooden slats. A huge deck accommodates the back of his house, looking over a couple of acres of friendly green around a large pond. He built the deck as well as the gazebo. He’s serious about the woodworking. His garage has been converted into a fully stocked shop with hundreds of tools aligned neatly.

Landry has been married to Samantha for two years; they’ve been a couple for 14. She is a former trainer’s assistant who now teaches. Because I couldn’t get him to admit anything, I asked Samantha if her husband had any vices.

“Well, he is a perfectionist,” she replied with a giggle, suggesting much more pride than grief about that. And nowhere is that issue of perfection emphasized more than in Landry’s documentation of his riding career. He invites me inside to see his computerized database and this is something I have never seen. He has every race he’s ever ridden computed and compartmentalized.

“See this,” he says, pointing at a number on the screen. “I’ve ridden 17,268 times. If I want to see how many times I’ve won for a certain trainer, I can do that.”

Landry types in the the name Danny Vella. Up comes the number of times he ridden a Vella trained horse and the number of times he’s won for Vella. Each entry identifies the date and race, the name of the horse, the name of the trainer and the surface (dirt, grass, poly). In less than a minute, he can determine how many times he’s won four races on a card  and how many times he’s won three times in one day.

“Aside from being really interesting,” I say, “Does it ever do you any good?”

A big grin crosses his face.

“Well let’s say a trainer tells me that we don’t get many winners together, ” answers Landry, “ I go into the date base and show him otherwise. That’s paid off for me.”  

I’ve seen Landry in the jocks room and he always seems to have a racing program with him, always making notes. He brings those home and on pretty well a daily basis, feeds that stuff into his database. Landry the perfectionist.

Landry readily admits that he won’t ever again be the leading jockey at Woodbine. Even with four wins one one day at Woodbine, he only has 22 wins in 237 rides, good for maybe 14th in the standings. He rides a lot for Sue Leslie and Roger Attfield and Danny Vella and the ride on Careless Jewel is one of many provided for him by Josie Carroll.

“I’ve had a great career,” Landry asserts. “I’m a very lucky guy.”

There’s more evidence of Landry’s makeup inside his home. He’s a hockey nut and has assembled a veritable hockey hall of fame exhibit in his den; a couple of seats from the old Montreal Forum, signed sticks from Wayne Gretzky and Eric Lindros, hockey pucks signed by Jean Beliveau, a great framed black and white photograph of Gordie Howe scoring on Johnny Bower.  Much of this memorablia is the residual benifit reaped from Landry’s charitable work. The guy rarely says no to a good cause and often ends up at events that also feature stars like Wendle Clark, Darryl Sittler, Gretzky, Howe and many other NHL stars. Landry’s collection of autographed jerseys would make most die-hard hockey fans salivate.

Anyway, in the next issue of Down The Stretch, Canada’s most informative and entertaining horse racing newspaper, you will find a not-award winning article on Landry with only a slight reference to his database. I told him, I would be coming back to do a second story on him; a piece that shows how carefully and thoughfully he has carved out a near perfect life for himself and Samantha. 

Rachel Alexandra was incredible in this race. Calvin Borel put her near the top from the moment the gates opened and the field of colts had no intention of displaying chivalry. One by one, they pushed her, as if there had been a pre-race conspiracy among them to do her as much harm as possible. Da’tara, who shocked at 38-1 in last year’s Belmont went first, pushing Rachel Alexandra to a first quarter in sprinters’ speed of :22.46. Past The Point took up the chase and that meant a half of :46.41, which, generally is way too fast for normal horses running nine panels. Rachel Alexandra coverered the first six furlongs in a gasping 1:10.54 and there was a moment at the top of the stretch, when a few horses fanned out and seemed ready to break the filly’s spell. Bullsbay loomed up with less than two furlongs to go, but his charge sputtered, Past The Point collapsed from his challenge and Da’Tara would stagger in last.

Down to the wire, Rachel Alexandra was in charge, even if Macho Again, whose jockey Robbie Albarado had carved out a most benign trip - in last most of the way - came barelling down the centre of the track to make it close at the wire.The charts say a head, the hearts say she’s a superstar.

And there is good news, both for Rachel Alexandra and horse racing fans. Her owners have pretty well stated she won’t run again this year. Why should she? What more could she possibly prove? She won the Kentucky Oaks by a ton, beat the boys in the  Preakness, the Haskell and the Woodward Stakes and went unbeaten in eight races this year. Owner Jess Jackson has said she will run next year.

By the way, that win on Rachel Alexandra was a rare streak of sunshine for jockey Calvin Borel. Aside from Rachel’s electrifying win, the lights were pretty well out for Borel at the Spa…he went 1 for 43 on all the other horses he rode.

So later that night, they ran the Metro Pace at Mohawk and if you’ve been wondering how we could ever fill the void left by the incomparable Somebeachsomewhere, wonder no more.  Sportswriter, trained by Casie Coleman, parlayed a perfect trip from Mark MacDonald into a monster stretch run to win by a length and a half. Sportswriter, now unbeaten in five lifetime races was timed in 1:49.2, a world record for a two year-old pacer, one fifth of a second speedier than the record set in 2007 by Somebeachsomewhere.  MacDonald steered Sportswriter into 5th down the backstretch and angled out to get benevolent cover from Woodstock. Into the Mohawk stretch, Sportswriter was shown open track and he gobbled it up like, well like a sportswriter at a pregame buffet.

Sportswriter has a few more pages to fill out before he can be reasonably compared with Somebeachsomewhere who won 20 of 21 races, but Sportswriter is definitely off to a great start.

And if summer has to come to an (unofficial) ending, that was some well-appreciated heat on the tracks provided by two fantastic horses on saturday.