Backstretch with Gordon--Thursday

It’s Thursday and it’s Backstretch With Gordon, but Gordon didn’t really want to be on The Red Mile backstretch as the long-awaited rain finally arrived, and although it’s nice since it’s been something like a year and a half since it last rained in Lexington, couldn’t it have waited another two weeks?

It stormed pretty good early this morning, and I understood that the main track was a flurry of activity at around six as trainers scurried to get their horses trained before the rain hit. I think it was somewhere around 7:45 when I heard that first crack of thunder, which of course sent my cat flying under the bed since it’s been something like a year and a half since she heard anything like that.

It poured a few minutes and then let up, and by the time I reached the track at 8:45 (of course the traffic in Lexington crawls to a standstill when there is any sort of inclement weather so it took me an extra 10 minutes or so to get there) it had pretty much stopped. But I took my handy little umbrella—the child’s umbrella given away Meadowlands Pace night at the Meadowlands (can’t turn down the free stuff)—and took my stroll through the muddy backstretch.

Of course, by now the main track had been closed and horses were only allowed to work out on the inner oval. There weren’t too many going around as it appeared nearly all of the horses that were scheduled to train today were up before dawn and out before the rain.

It then was ironic as the first two people I saw in the barn area were trainers Joe Holloway and Steve Elliott, both huge New York Yankees fans. It was just a year ago that I could gloat—as a former Detroiter—about the Tigers finally making the playoffs, and then rubbing it in even more when my beloved team knocked out the Yankees in their eventual series. But this time around the shoe was on the other foot as the Yankees clinched their playoff spot last night, officially eliminating the Tigs although they have been essentially out of it for more than a month.

I congratulated Joe as he drove past me on his golf cart and he gave me a thumbs-up, and I offered the same to Steve, who was sitting around the table at his barn with a couple of his owners. And since I snubbed Donato yesterday in search of another well-bred, well-named trotter, I asked Steve how he was doing. Steve told me the same answer he’s been giving me since the start of the season and that Donato is as good as he always is. And that must be pretty good as he’s won 15 in a row now.

It had started to sprinkle just a bit so I thought I’d just make one sweep through the barn area and then head back to the office. But first I had to make it through a tug of war over my umbrella with one of the two dogs in the Elliott barn. I won, but I gave the dog a nice pat on his back for trying his best, although it was a very wet pat as the dog was soaked.

I actually walked through the entire main barn area and there wasn’t too much activity going on. On my way out I saw trainer Al Tomlinson, who I have known forever since my Michigan days and congratulated him on his second winner in two days that he had yesterday. But c’mon—a $57.20 winner with John Campbell driving?

Finally, congratulations to the connections of A And Gsconfusion for a new world record for freshman pacing fillies yesterday, and also to those behind Beachy Girl, whose winning time a couple of races later would have equaled the previous mark had it not been already lowered. Maybe the weather will clear later and another world mark will fall, but it’s dicey at best as another round of storms is expected at around noon time, and then scattered showers the rest of the day.

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