This Saturday you'll find me screaming my fool head off at Canterbury Park, wagering this week's pay on the Triple Crown.

Our local place to play the ponies is hosting special Belmont Stakes betting in honor of Big Brown, who has a chance to make history by becoming the first horse in 30 years to win the Triple Crown.

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From:
Jack K. Sparks
Hillbilly Number One
El Platano Blanco

To:
SGT Sparkes, Michael
FSC 1-327 IN REG
1ST ARMORED DIV
Somewhere Overseas

Cousin Mike,

Spring is breaking across Minnesota; however, we aren't experiencing it fully because the good Lord has seen fit to extend old Martinmas into damn near May. Unfortunately, Mother Nature's roulette wheel always lands on Black around this time of year as she ushers in all of Summer's shortsighted pursuits. Chief among these are man's search for sustenance from the feral fauna of the land, and, man's search for the big score from an endless procession of glue factory nags at Parimutuel windows from Santa Anita to Belmont.

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Jack K. Sparks--hillbilly music aficionado, Kansas City Royals fan, and certain product of at least three generations of inbreeding--has been sending me hostile, deranged emails for months about the Kentucky Derby. On opening day of the baseball season, slurping Miller Lite like a hog at a trough, the drunken savage hollered at me incoherently until I agreed to go in with him on some ludicrous superfecta bet on the first Saturday in May. (Which by the way is the name of a documentary about the Kentucky Derby that opens on Friday at the Lagoon.) It was almost as pathetic as watching that sad drunk Hank Goldberg analyze races for ESPN.

But with all the significant prep races out of the way it's time to start seriously contemplating the field for the finest day on the racing calendar. There's still the Lexington Stakes this Saturday, but only a few half-assed contenders (Atoned, Salute the Sarge and Tomcito) are slated to run.

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After the madness of the Kentucky Derby--20 horses jostling for a clean patch of dirt for a mile and a quarter--The Preakness is something of a letdown. The field is set at nine, with only four Derby contestants returning to the starting gate at Pimlico. Street Sense will be there, of course, along with the other two horses that finished in the money, Curlin and Hard Spun. The other retread is Circular Quay, a late runner that I was dumb enough to throw some money at two weeks ago and who finished sixth.

There's a reason none of the other five horses competed in the Derby. They look to be a bunch of stiffs. King of the Roxy is the only semi-impressive beast, having finished second (to Tiago) in the Santa Anita Derby. I'm also semi-intrigued by C.P. West, who's only finished out of the money once in eight runs, but against suspect competition.

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Horseracing guru Steve Davidowitz will be on the show around 11 a.m. P.A. says he likes Tiago, Dominica, and Great Hunter. Wagering commences in less than seven hours!

Here's the Derby lineup:

1 Sedgefield 50-1
2 Curlin 7-2
3 Zanjero 30-1
4 Storm in May 30-1
5 Imawildandcrazyguy 50-1
6 Cowtown Cat 20-1
7 Street Sense 4-1
8 Hard Spun 15-1
9 Liquidity 30-1
10 Teuflesberg 30-1
11 Bwana Bull 50-1
12 Nobiz Like Shobiz 8-1
13 Sam P. 20-1
14 Scat Daddy 10-1
15 Tiago 15-1
16 Circular Quay 8-1
17 Stormello 30-1
18 Any Given Saturday 12-1
19 Dominican 20-1
20 Great Hunter 15-1

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He had done a few good sketches, but so far we hadn't seen that special kind of face that I felt we would need for a lead drawing. It was a face I'd seen a thousand times at every Derby I'd ever been to. I saw it, in my head, as the mask of the whiskey gentry--a pretentious mix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis; the inevitable result of too much inbreeding in a closed and ignorant culture. One of the key genetic rules in breeding dogs, horses or any other kind of thoroughbred is that close inbreeding tends to magnify the weak points in a bloodline as well as the strong points. In horse breeding, for instance, there is a definite risk in breeding two fast horses who are both a little crazy. The offspring will likely be very fast and also very crazy. So the trick in breeding thoroughbreds is to retain the good traits and filter out the bad. But the breeding of humans is not so wisely supervised, particularly in a narrow Southern society where the closest kind of inbreeding is not only stylish and acceptable, but far more convenient--to the parents--than setting their offspring free to find their own mates, for their own reasons and in their own ways.

--Hunter S. Thompson, The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, Scanlan's Monthly, vol 1, no. 4, June 1970

Nobody writes alt-pop love songs about the demure yet pretty Sarbanes-Oxley audit girl and her pale grey eyes. Writing about music for so many years, I've been forced to think in metaphors, similes, and subjective language so much, that when an "objective" event like the Kentucky Derby rolls around, I have to jackhammer all of the meaningless bullshit out of my brains so that I can wring the truth from the filth soaked rag of the horseracing business. People have spent the past week pissing all over themselves about whether Teuflesberg will get into the big dance. Who gives a damn? Also, I've been waiting for the inevitable paen to long odds...8 column inches on why Tiago is a lot like Giacomo and all boat dreams will come true after 1 1/4 miles of magic. These horses could come in for you and pay big on a large bet...and then you'd be able to move Little Vito and his mom to Maine and help him get his life in order.

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The Blue Grass Stakes from Keeneland was the kind of race that would make you turn around and start scanning the box seats for a smiling John Gotti, smoking a cigar and shaking hands with his associates. Watching the horses down the backstretch in this garbage race, you couldn't help but think to yourself that the fix was in. Five jockeys had their donkeys out for a casual afternoon stroll and they were all going to wait until the quarter poll to turn it on. At the post, Street Sense was at even money and Great Hunter was 2nd at 9-5. And the horsey wizards were falling all over themselves after the race trying to convince everyone that's exactly how it would have played out, had the race not been "paceless," which is just paddock code for "everyone shook hands and agreed not to actually race their 'racehorses' until the backstretch."

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The voice on the other end sounded groggy. Demko was either in an opium den or incredibly bored with what he was doing.

"Are you watching the ponies motherfucker?" Small pause. "Oh, oh yeah those races are today aren't they?"

Having to remind Demko that the Wood Memorial, Illinois Derby, and Santa Anita were all running in the space of approximately one hour on one day, usually, would be like reminding Julia Roberts to brush her teeth. But there it was, a fish out of water.

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The redoubtable Garwood B. Jones, best known for his Wolves-related commentary in this spot, has sent forth some lengthy, informative (and undoubtedly misguided) commentary on Saturday's race. Because it's difficult to post links in the comments section (and because he sucked up to me by making an informed comment about poor Frankie Hejduk), I'm posting it as a separate item. Keep those comments coming! Soon I will post my superfecta pick so that all can be sufficiently warned away from those poor, doomed beasts.

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