Backstretch with Gordon--Thursday

And the beat goes on in Lexington—and the heat goes on as it’s expected to reach 90 degrees on Thursday, temperatures about as hot as the opening night of the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale yesterday out at Fasig-Tipton. Before I talk about my Thursday morning walk through the barn area, I have to gush about the sale and last night’s activities.

After the races finished up on Wednesday I rushed home, took a shower, and went back out to grab a quick bite to eat before heading to the sale. When I got there around 6:45 it was already crowded. I’m pretty sure it’s the biggest crowd I’ve seen at a sale here since I arrived in town back in 1998.

I watched the first 20 or so horses sell from the inside seating area—the air-conditioned seating area—with Kathy Parker and the USTA’s David Carr, and then we all kind of dispersed and walked around. I wandered up to the lounge area with the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority’s Marc Guilfoil and Jamie Haydon and watched the TV monitors as the horses came into the ring. It seemed every time I looked up the bids were growing: $100,000, then $110,000, then $120,000 and upward. I’m sure everyone connected with the sale slept with big smiles on their faces.

Nick Salvi and Bill Bigler came over and then John Cashman III and Tom Haughton walked by and Tom said with a laugh how he’s been borrowing John’s vehicle to get around town and how impressed he was that everyone in tow—man, woman, old or young—gave him a one-hand wave as he drove by. Tom also wanted to relay an old story regarding his late brother, Peter, from a race back in the late 1970s at Roosevelt Raceway as he said no one ever really knew about it.

What happened was that Peter won the International with Cold Comfort, and then after crossing the finish line Ed Dunnigan reached over to shake Peter’s hand. But Peter not quite got the chance as when he leaned over he fell out of the race bike, although he still had a hand on a line to keep hold of the horse. Tom said there is video of Peter’s pratfall and that the family laughed about it for years, but John noted that nobody really ever mentioned the incident. So here it is, 29 years after that race in 1978, that the story is finally told.

Anyway, when I usually arrive it’s quiet, but last night when I got there it looked like Hurricane Horsemen had hit the places. Glasses were everywhere, money was all over the counter, and the place was packed. It’s safe to say horseman with last names from A to Z were there—let me amend that as I don’t remember any Q’s and it’s pretty safe there were no X’s, and since I do know a Z in Mario Zuanetti, I will say that he was not there.

So now that we can finally get to Thursday’s backstretch, I walked through and saw The Horseman’s photographer, Joe Kyle, so we walked back to Val Taurus’s barn as he wanted to take some pictures. Normand Bardier Jr. was walking the horse so the timing was perfect.

We then walked over to Steve Elliott’s barn, where I had earlier dropped off a couple of this week’s Horseman that had Steve and Donato Hanover’s picture on it. Steve wasn’t there earlier but he was now, and he was sitting around the table with A.C., Donato’s groom, Paul Bordogna, a co-owner of Donato, and the Lightning Stable’s manager Jerry Glantz. I kidded Steve, telling him the only person who has been on more covers lately is Britney Spears.

It was ironic then as Normand walked Val Taurus right by the Elliott camp. Not sure if he was making a subtle statement, but Steve was the first to notice the trotter passing by. They told Joe and I they are looking forward to Saturday’s Futurity match-up with Val Taurus, as well as Pampered Princess and the others. I think everyone is looking forward to the race, although Jerry got a laugh when he asked us to quit talking about Saturday and focus first on Friday’s Filly Futurity, in which he has a good shot with Flash Lightning.

See you at the races and then at the sale, and dress cool. And I filled the gas tank this morning at $2.48 a gallon.

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