BarbaraAnne Helberg's Blog

Posted by BarbaraAnne Helberg

Four and one-third winners from eight races. No, I didn't bet. Not my thing. I project winners from the racing program information just for the fun of it and have a fine time. Reporting my "expertise" is the second half of the fun. 2008 represented my 2nd (of a targeted annual) Fulton County Fair Labor Day at the harness races to be followed by a blog report (and factual article reports).

How did I pick four and one-third winners? Well, I got winners in Race Two, Race Five, Race Six and Race Seven; in Race One I called a dead-heat between TimJon and Oh My Sam and they obliged me by finishing first (TimJon) and third (Oh My Sam). So I gave myself a one-third point for that "almost" pick.

There were exciting, close races, runaway races, and come-from-behind races. A nice variety for any fan. Two runaways, Taco Chip (Race Two) and Snow Storm Sam (Race Five) and 14-year-old Presidential Pride (Race Six) got the most cheers for their exhilarating efforts.

If you go to the local harness race tracks without much knowledge, a complete program can help a lot in picking potential victors. Pay attention to

• pedigrees -- does a named sire have multiple entrants on the day's card?
• racing records -- does an entrant have nearly one win for every three, or four starts?
• highest career earnings figures -- meaning an entrant has won against best competitors in distinguished races with the largest purses

Follow your first choices. Trust that instinct after considering the above facts. Good luck! Have fun!

Posted by BarbaraAnne Helberg

Co-owner and trainer of harness racing's best pacer, Somebeachsomewhere, Brent Mcgrath says his boy won't compete in the Little Brown Jug, and 2007 Thoroughbred of the Year Curlin's connections say their prize runner isn't on a schedule that would include starting in his second straight Breeders' Cup.

Pacing's premier race, the Jug, is scheduled for September 18. Come on, Brent! The fans want it! Somebeachsomewhere is fit and ready!

Mcgrath's beef is that Somebeachsomewhere may have to win preliminary elimination heats to qualify for the same-day Jug final. Delaware, Ohio bettors have favored Somebeachsomewhere 3-1 in the first future wagering pool.

What Thoroughbred racing fan doesn't want to see Curlin, the four-year-old star, captor of this season's Dubai World Cup Classic and last year's Breeders' Cup Classic champ, hook up with three-year-old phenom Big Brown? And when has Curlin's owner, Jess Jackson, ever run from a fight? Big Brown's trainer, Richard Dutrow, Jr., has called for a matchup.

Hook'em up, gentlemen!

In Delaware, Badlands Nitro, who paced second to Somebeachsomewhere in the Pepsi North America Cup in June, has been given next best voting status. His odds stand at 7-1.

After Big Brown's failure in the Belmont Stakes, which robbed him of the 12th Triple Crown in history, but subsequent hard-fought victories in the Haskell Invitational and the Monmouth on turf, the game was on for a match race, so to speak, with the mighty Curlin.

What a shame if the best of the best don't race in the best of the available competitions.

Posted by BarbaraAnne Helberg

Somebeachsomewhere not to race as a four-year-old?

Ridiculous!

Thoroughbred Big Brown and Standardbred Somebeachsomewhere, both unbeatens throughout the spring of their three-year-old seasons, proved vulnerable in June (BB's failed Belmont Stakes) and July (Somebeachsomewhere's upset in the Meadowlands Pace).

If the Triple Crown loss didn't devalue BB's future -- he since has won the Haskell Invitational -- Somebeachsomewhere's defeat shouldn't lessen his future prospects either. Both horses should make great stallions and contribute mightily to their respective bloodlines.

So let the big boys run while they can.

Somebeachsomewhere has years to go as a pacer. Let him glow into that twilight of greatness reserved only for the special ones! There's lots of time for him to pass on those talented genes!

Rumors of retiring the once-defeated pacer before he even gets to the pacing Triple Crown series are sad. Let the little fans have more than a moment, or two to enjoy the big boys. Pacers and trotters have much longer expectancies on the track than do runners.

Big Brown has already been scheduled for stud service at Three Chimneys Farm following his final three-year-old race, probably the Breeders' Cup Class in October. Somehow, it doesn't seem like enough to expect to visit the champ somewhere on shed row someday.

Nor to see Somebeachsomewhere roaming a pasture instead of blitzing for the wire in competition.

These two fellows are prime time. Let them continue to do what they have been primed for -- to race!

Posted by BarbaraAnne Helberg

As a teenager, I was a huge Detroit Tiger fan, and in particular, an Al Kaline nut, in the 1950s and 1960s. Year after year, until the old format of just two full leagues was replaced by division playoffs, the Tigers chased the New York Yankees for a pennant.

The division decisions spread things out in the 1970s, when it became the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics doing battle for a division title, while Detroit played second fiddle, and the Yankees split and languished elsewhere, in the expanded version of diamond warfare.

There was no rightfielder like the young Kaline, who joined the Tigers from high school in 1953. He had an immediate impact on the Detroit scene, playing in 136 games and getting 504 at bats the next season. His bat sung heroics and his glove was golden year after year.

Off the field, he was a giant, too. He was a straight shooter, as they said in those days. Not a womanizer, not a drinker, not a showboat. Just a good kid who emerged into an icon playing a game he loved and, amazingly, he always said shyly, making a living at it.

That was Al, my first big time sports hero.

Wow, was I happy in 1968 when Al got to the World Series! Every player of great stature wants to play in the fall classic, and every kid wants to see his/her favorite player in it. Not only did Al get there, he had a major contribution in game five that spurred the Tigers on to the world title after they had trailed the powerful St. Louis Cardinals three games to one.

It was heaven, for a day, and more. Thanks, Mr. Tiger!

Posted by BarbaraAnne Helberg

Okay, now we have evidence, let's try this one more time. Big Brown lost the Triple Crown. He ran badly. Why? First reported in The Blood-Horse magazine in a statement from owner Michael Iavarone, BB came back from the race with a loose shoe described as "no issue" on his left hind. (June 14, pg. 3025 -- "Big Brown, Connections Regroup After Mystifying Performance".)

Photographic evidence now shows a significantly loose right hind shoe (June 21, pg. 3160 -- Dispatches, "Dutrow, Desormeaux Mend Fences).

Gary Stevens, retired top jockey, now TV analyst, says: "It had to be uncomfortable. It's pretty significant..."

D.Wayne Lukas, top active trainer, says: "Good horses can win without a hind shoe, let alone a loose nail."

I gotta go with Gary. Gee, D.Wayne, did you see the picture in Blood-Horse? How could a horse run well with a shoe hanging as badly as that?! It wasn't a case of a loose nail, or a shoe thrown off altogether.

"To win the Triple Crown, everything has to line up absolutely perfect. The weather, the horse's condition, the track conditions, everything has to be just absolutely perfect." -- USA Today newspaper, June 6, 2008, quoting John Veitch, trainer of Alydar, who chased Affirmed in all three classics to second place.

The horse's shoes...very much part of "everything". And how ironic to have a hind shoe go wrong after all the attention paid to his front two.