Bay Meadows - News and notes

Old gelding disappoints
Motel Staff returned to the races over the weekend and pretty much stunk up the joint in a 25k optional claimer contested at one mile over the lawn. The eleven year old stood in the gate at the start, spotting the field at least five lengths, and never really got into the race. The gelding was not claimed out of the race by former owner GCCI or anyone else for that matter.

In contrast, there was a flurry of claiming activity [drf - free subscription required] in the the first leg of the triple play series, in which claiming horses will ultimately run for a purse of $60,000.

Trainers title race remains tight
Through the end of the race week Monday March 17th, the top spot in the trainer standings remains deadlocked. Steve Sherman, Jerry Hollendorfer and Steve Miyadi again share leading trainer honors, each sporting 23 wins.

Hollendorfer and Miyadi are mainstays in the trainer standings. Both have big personalities and can be abrasive both naturally and for show. Sherman can clearly hold his own with these two backstretch hobgoblins, but unlike his co-leaders, Sherman is not terribly cartoonish. I have for some time wanted to feature him in my periodic series of horsemen looking ridiculous, but he has thus far been an elusive target.

While Steve Sherman has effectively run the NorCal contingency of the family training empire for some time, he only took over as trainer of record on January 1st of this year. This allowed patriarch Art Sherman to concentrate more heavily on SoCal operations. Despite much success on the SoCal circuit in prior years, Art has had a very rough start to 2008. His win percent hovered in the low single digits, last I checked. No word on whether sonny boy Steve will be summoned southward with his 30% winning percentage to right the ship.

Intrepid blogger Tote Board Brad noted in industry publication that no one reads
Lastly, this blog received some wee mention in a broadcast industry rag this morning. The article highlights the career of Christina Olivares, on air talent at TVG, and formerly of HRTV. If you count up 13 paragraphs or so from the bottom, there you'll find a brief passage which reads Horse-racing blogs with names like “Brad Buys a Yearling” and “Left at the Gate” chronicle her on-air exploits.

While mention in any publication, save the police blotter, is a lovely ego boost, being mentioned in the same sentence as the world's best horse racing blog is a true honor.

I wouldn't say I've chronicled her on-air exploits, but I'll link to the totality of posts--both of them--about her and let you, the reader, decide. One I penned in 2005 and the other in May of 2006. With that said, I am stalker enough that I accosted her recently while she was at Bay Meadows to get my picture taken with her. In my eloquence I believe I said something along the lines of "uh...uh... bub... bub..bub, uh, picture... uhh.... bub bub bub..." before thrusting my camera into some passer's by hand and mugging for all I was worth. I'll spare you the pic of my sorry self star struck and mouth agape, but here is the popular broadcaster standing trackside at Bay Meadows last month.