Club Hipico on Raceday

I know I promised pics of Valparaiso Sporting Club, and billed it as the second coming. First, enjoy these photos from a day's races at Club Hipico de Santiago, which is a spectacular track in its own right.



above: view of the grandstand from the back. this is what you see when you first walk it. it is the same pic I posted before, but NOW WITH FOUNTAINS!





above: stretch drive





above: returning to the paddock post race

Apology issued

In a previous post I drew some hard and fast conclusions which I now see were in error. My regular reader (there are unsubstaintiated rumors I may have two now) might recall the post I declared heralded American racetracks like Del Mar and Saratoga shitboxes in compare to Club Hipico de Santiago. That remians an accurate assessment, however to imply Club Hipico is the Boss before seeing Valparaiso Sporting Club in Viña del Mar was wholly unfair. This racetrack is FULL OF WIN and deserves its own post. Perhaps a series of them. I´m confident you´ll excuse my orgasmically banal verbiage once I get some pics posted. ´till then.....

Hipodromo Chile

Accross town from the lavish Club Hipico de Santiago is the modern and modest Hipodromo Chile. The racing is just as good, and the atmosphere perhaps even more festive. Race goers in suits and sundresses were of a decidedly lower percentage at Hipodromo than at Club Hipico, but there was certainly more booze consumed per capita at Hipodromo. If Hipico was keeneland, then Hipodromo would be Turfway, only with just as many graded stakes as their otherwise dominant sibling.

One other notable difference is Hipodromo has a dirt track--the only one in the nation, I´m told, and no turf course.

I´ll post some pics for your viewing pleasure shortly. [EDIT: my pics are now included! Click on the images to see them uncropped, as Blogger reformats them given the posting method i´ve employed here. Posting from the southern half of the globe is just trouble enough to induce me to comprimise my already lax standards.]

Club Hipico, Santiago, Chile

Perhaps you are familiar with Del Mar, Keeneland, Santa Anita, and Saratoga? Shitboxes, each of them. At least in compare to the grand lady in the southwest corner of Santiago, Chile.

Meet my new love, Club Hipico de Santiago.

With unapologetic colonial grandeur and bulwarked by the Andes, Club Hipico anchors a delightful neighborhood. It's occupied by endless sheets of sun gracing work-a-day clock punchers hustling forth and from, and moneyed elites being seen, to indie cafe denizens camped in one of many quaint caffeine casas lining the calles that spoke from the track.

There's no parking lot here. Still, the grandstand teems on weekends with Chileans eager for good sport and an ambient sense of jubilee, as much as a winning punt. And why not? Don't you want to sit in this GRANDstand?

TBA photo contest

You should check out the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance photo contest entires. Vote for your favs.

Google hosts treasure trove of horse racing photos from Life Magazine

On New Year's Eve I took in the racing action at San Isidro, just outside of Buenos Aires. I was profitable at the windows, but less than successful at snapping a quality pic. Thank god Google over 20% of Life's image archive is now hosted with plans to have the remainder up this year. Luckily, there were some solid Argentine racing pics to poach.

Still Life with Potatoes, Pearls, Raw Meat, Rhinestones, Lard, and Horse Hooves

In Spanish it's naturaleza muerta and not life at all.
But certainly not natural. What's natural?
You and me. I'll buy you a drink.
To a woman who doesn't act like a woman.
To a man who doesn't act like a man.
Death is natural, at least in Spanish, I think.
Life? I'm not so sure.
Consider the Cont?ssa, who in her time was lovely
and now sports a wart the size of this diamond.
So, ragazzo, you're Venice.
To you. To Venice.
Not the one of Casanova.
The other one of cheap pensiones by the railway station.
I recommend a narrow bed stained with semen, pee, and sorrow facing the wall.
Stain and decay are romantic.
You're positively Pasolini.
Likely to dangle and fandango yourself to death.
If we let you. I won't let you!
Not to be outdone I'm Piazzolla.
I'll tango for you in a lace G-string
stained with my first-day flow
and one slopply tit leaping lika Niagara from my dress.
Did you say duress or dress?
Let's sing a Puccini duet--I like La Traviesa.
I'll be your trained monkey.
I'll be sequin and bangle.
I'll be Mae, Joan, Bette, Marlene for you--
I'll be anything you ask. But ask me something glamorous.
Only make me laugh.
Another?
What I want to say, querido, is
hunger is not romantic to the hungry.
What I want to say is
fear is not so thrilling if you're the one afraid.
What I want to say is
poverty's not quaint when it's your house you can't escape from.
Decay's not beautiful to the decayed.
What's beauty?
Lipstick on a penis.
A kiss on a running sore.
A reptile stiletto that could puncture a heart.
A brick through the windshield that means I love you.
A hurt that bangs on the door.
Look, I hate to break this to you, but this isn't Venice or Buenos Aires.
This is San Antonio.
That mirror isn't a yard sale.
It's a fire. And these are remnants
of what could be carried out and saved.
The pearls? I bought them at Winn's.
My mink? Genuine acrylic.
Another drink?
Bartender, another bottle, but--
?Ay caray and oh dear!--
The pretty blonde boy is no longer serving us.
To the death camps! To the death camps!
How rude! How vulgar!
Drink up, honey. I've got money.
Doesn't he know who we are?
Que vivan los de abajo de los de abajo,
los de rienda suelta, the witches, the women,
the dangerous, the queer.
Que vivan las perras.
"Qye me sirvan otro trago..."
I know a bar where they'll buy us drinks
if I wear my skirt on my head and you in wearing nothing
but my black brassiere.


--Sandra Cisneros


~~~~~~~

Cisneros is a superstar of a writer, weaving vivid imagery with raw emotion seemingly extracted directly from the soul.

Latin American racing and literature - but mostly literature

Fans of the game know there is a grand tradition of horse racing in many Latin American countries. Even if not specifically, racing fans have a sense of it. We see who gets the work done on the backstretch. We see South American horses win major stakes and titles in the States. In many Spanish speaking countries (and in Brazil, for that matter) racing is far more a part of the fabric of the culture than it is in the U.S. today.

To prepare for an annealing into Latin American racing, I was inclined to lop every book off the shelf about racing and thoroughbreds set in any of our neighbors to the south. But before I could execute on this strategy, Jorge Borges convinced me otherwise.

In his essay The Argentine Writer and Tradition, the great Argentine man of letters responded to criticism that he was not adequately advancing a distinctly Argentine literary school due to his failure to bludgeon all his works with tangos and gauchos. Mark Frisch in You Might be Able to Get There from Here distills the point well.

"El escritor argentino y la tradición" (The Argentine Writer and Tradition) most clearly and distinctly portrays how Borges views his role in regard to dominant Western culture, and illustrates his purposes in dealing with the Western cultural heritage. That essay, along with a number of his stories, highlights that he not only sought to create a space where Argentine and Latin American Cultures could define their distinct qualities, but that he also viewed Latin American writers as playing a significant role in the redefinition of Western culture. Taking issue with those who claim that Argentine writers should focus on their indigenous material and their gaucho tradition, he argues that self-reflexive attitude is limiting and artificial. He refers to Gibbon's remark that there are no camels mentioned in the Koran....

In his essay, Borges says "there is no reason to emphasize camels in the Arabian work; on the other hand, the first thing a falsifier, a tourist, an Arab nationalist would do is have a surfeit of camels, caravans of camels, on every page."

Similarly, racing is part of the backdrop, part and parcel, first coronet in life's score in Latin America. I'd do better to watch the whole film, listen to the full ensemble, and not carve out one integral thread in the grand tapestry.

If you will indulge me, I will post a passage or two that strike me from Latin American writers over the next few weeks, regardless of whether they address racing directly. The context may even be more valuable than a surgical snapshot of racing in a vacuum.

MERRY CRIMBO! [obligatory holiday post, Kingdom of Loathing edition]

A RACING FAN IS YOU!



My stick figure was supposed to have a santa hat on him, but it fell off, and i'm fresh out of meat paste, so you'll have to use your imagination. All the best of the holidays to you and yours!

Thanksgiving tradition

Fairgrounds began their meet early this year instead of the traditional Thanksgiving opening day. Luckily, we still have the tradition of Alice's Restaurant Massacree to fall back on.

Exercise rider killed in line of duty

Ignacio Ramirez, known as Nacho to everyone at the track, was killed Sunday morning when he fell or was thrown from a horse he was about to work and the horse then fell on him. The incident occurred just before six, near the corner of a barn that leads to the main backstretch pathway. Trainer Jerry Weaver said he gave Nacho CPR before the ambulance arrived, but that Nacho was not responding. Weaver also said much of his skull on one side appeared crushed.

Nacho was a legend on the backstretch. Not only was he a longtime exercise rider, he also almost always had a horse or two he trained throughout his life. When he was younger he also rode in match races, unsanctioned events popular to this day in California. I did not know him well, but I have heard plenty about him, including how he had dodged death many times before. He had been in some horrific spills. He had been kicked plenty. And he had been shot twice. Just a coupla years ago outside his apartment he was shot when he found himself in the midst of a robbery. Even then in his mid-fifties, he healed up and headed back to the track.

By all accounts, Nacho was known as a good hand and a great guy. He will be missed.

Travisty at the ballot box

No, we're not talking about the presidency. It's much more serious than that. The injustice I speak of is that Jerry Hollendorfer is not in the Racing Hall of Fame. Hollendorfer has over 5200 wins. He's 4th all time in wins.

Perhaps because he only wins cheap races in northern California?

He's won the Big 'Cap and Coaching Club American Oaks. He beat the boys in the California Derby with the filly Pike Place Dancer. That filly also won the Kentucky Oaks. But that was his 2nd Kentucky Oaks victory, as he won it with Lite Light 5 years earlier. Remember that horse Event of the Year? Yeah, he trained him. He has also won the Hollywood Futurity and the Haskell Invitational. The Jim Beam, too. This year alone he's won two stakes with million dollar purses.

Maybe you saw another horse he trained on the cover of today's Form. That's Hystericalady. She won the Humana Distaff and the Molly Pitcher in a fabulous career before being the first day sale topper at the most recent Keeneland sale.

So, he doesn't just win cheap races in the comfort of NoCal, where he's won the last 982743 training titles. (factcheck.org has informed me From 1986 though May 2008, he won the training championship at every major Bay Area meeting, recording 37 straight titles at Bay Meadows and 32 consecutive crowns at Golden Gate Fields)

But, could he really compete on a bigger circuit day-in and day-out? Dorf took the training title from perennial Arlington king Wayne Catalano in 2001. He only competed at the meet twice, coming in a close 2nd to Catalano the following year when Dorf halved his Arlington string in the final weeks of the meet.

Quite frankly, that Jerry Hollendorfer is not in the Hall of Fame does not detract from his accomplishments in anyway. This fact does, however, speak to the extreme malfeasance on the part of Hall of Fame voters. In 2009 perhaps they will address this black mark on their record.

A race for the ages

On the backstretch, it's almost a match race now. Obama on the inside by a head. McCain is on the outside. They've opened ten lengths on Ralph Nader and Bob Barr.

They continue down the backstretch and that's Obama now taking the lead. He's got it by about a length and a half.

Their moving on the turn now. For the turn it's Obama. he looks like he's opening. The lead is increasing. Make it three, three and a half. He's moving into the turn. Obama, holding on to a large lead. McCain is second and it's a long way back to Bob Barr & Ralph Nader. Their on the turn and Obama is blazing along.

Obama is widening now. He's moving like a tremendous machine.

Turmoil in the markets

Following the House of Representatives failure to pass a bailout plan for our beleaguered banking sector, the market tanked. The dust is still settling, and it may take well into the night for brokers, accountants and wall street paper pushers to close all the transactions on an off the charts high volume day. It looks like the S&P will end up down between 8% and 9%, though. This will be either slightly less than the percentage loss on October 26, 1987, in the days following Black Monday, or possibly a good bit more. Furthermore, if congress does not act quickly, today's drop may be the precursor to a crash akin to 1987.

But what does this all mean to the horse racing fanatic? Clearly, it is time to realign your portfolio. Get out of volatile investments like stocks and bonds. Given recent bank failures, you're deposits may not even be safe. I recommend putting all your money in less risky investments, like thoroughbred race horses.

For the best horse racing writing anywhere, look to the right

No, not to the Genghis Kahn wing of the Republican party, but to the right sidebar. That's where you'll find links to each member blog in the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance. Or better yet, check out the TBA rss feed (or this version which also indicates from which blog the content originated) which aggregates all TBA blogs in one place. If there are any that aren't of higher quality than the shoddy drivel you read here, I have not found them.

Racing media must learn to speak more entertainingly and to a younger audience

In a recent missive Steven Crist notes the parallel phenomenons of evaporating print coverage and at the same time the ascension of quality online coverage largely provided by unpaid bloggers. In the best instances this "quality" Crist speaks of means avant-garde, irreverent writing, or more specifically, writing peppered with obscure pop culture references and hilariously opinion laden political commentary.

Engaging content is not strictly the trade of online forum zealots fed up with formulaic mainstream horse racing media. Nor is it merely the purlieu of indie kids sipping lattes while pecking on their Mac Airs in hipster populated coffee shops attempting Colbert Report caliber satire. ESPN's Kenny Mayne isn't beyond a (properly mocking) Miley Cyrus reference. Delightfully unscripted exchanges on HRTV & TVG also regularly yield similar inventive wit. But the home of wily treatises that induce mouse wheel spinning previously known only to readers of The Onion, can be found, usually via the very googlable Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance .

============================================
MID POST SHAMELESS PLUG
The Saint Louis, Missouri based punk band Dead City Dregs is on tour now. If you're in SoCal go see them at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood Friday night. I saw them in SF and I can personally tout to you that they rock.
============================================

Periodicals such as The Form could do worse than to emulate this approach. And it doesn't mean penning editorials in l33t (old people: google it, or for hippie Firesign Theatre Enthusiasts, trust that it's a 21st century version of op-talk). Stodgy geriatric sods in racing newsrooms may analogize this style to the excessive drum kit usage and inharmonious rants of punk bands. Regardless, Anti-Flag, Dropkick Murphy's (yes their punk!) sell a more concert tix than Crist does racing forms, and he knows this. I think he's on to something.

How the hell did I miss this?

Fairgrounds Racecourse in New Orleans is hosting a brief quarter horse meet

I was perusing the 2nd page of the form this morning, looking at the post times for tracks running today when POW, there's Fairgrounds with a mid-afternoon first post. But opening day is Thanksgiving. Everyone knows that! Upon further review, the Crescent City track is experimenting with a five day quarter horse meet. NOLA need a little action to heat up afternoons during the August swelter. Take a look at those fancy slots infused purses, they're giving away. Even I might brave 105 in the shade with 110% humidity and mosquitoes as big as bowling balls for some of that.

Bay Meadows auctioning off history

Bay Meadows Racetrack is apparently going to sell everything that isn't nailed down, and you can bid online, too.

From Blood-Horse:

The Aug. 23-24 sessions will feature all non-commercial assets of the track, including memorabilia and art work, track equipment, and restaurant/bar equipment. The Aug. 25, session will include all commercial assets of the track.

Pic of the day

Omar Figueroa entering the winners circle after prevailing aboard the Steve Sherman trained Buck Tuddy Buck in the 5th race at the Solono County Fair today.

Meet the twins

The latest installment in the continuing series of horsemen looking ridiculous