June 16 - 18: Haskell Preview / Father's Day Weekend
To be honest I was disappointed with the results from the weekend despite winning about what I usually get for the three days of racing. I had four picks from the eight race Monmouth Friday Twilight card and scored with three of them......but as they were all three favorites I lost a small amount of money on the day. I was most excited for the third race which featured the debut of MY 2yo filly Lady Blitz for trainer Todd Pletcher. Since buying into this filly I've watched her move from the farm to the training track and there was quite a bit of excitement - so it seemed - for her debut. She was exiting a sharp bullet work and looked to wire the five furlong field of maidens. But she broke slowly in the slop and ran evenly around the track. Found it somewhat interesting that the rider, in his post-race comments to the owners remarked that he thought she'd like the turf. I found this interesting because what appealed to me when I bought into her through MyRacehorse was that she was described as a "classic, two-turn dirt horse." The same was true of my 3yo filly Balletic who after one dirt try ran on turf and then broke her maiden on turf - both the latter in sprints.
Saturday I started off by continuing my hot streak. I won three straight races, including the first two on the Jersey Shore. And my win at Belmont was a nice $6.40 winner who I smiled when he crossed the line because neither of the NYRA handicappers - grouchy Andy Serling and hottie Acacia Courtney-Clement - had my choice in their top four selections. In the next five races I ran second three times, third once and scored with a Todd Pletcher firster.
I was disappointed with the results from Ellis Park on the day which I played because it was a day transferred from Churchill to the "Pea Patch" since the concern over the number of injuries at CD had led to the move and there were stakes races where I liked some of the runners, including my pick in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks Wet Paint. But I had only one win at Ellis and that was in a maiden event. Over the last eleven races on the day I had just this win at Ellis, an allowance win at Belmont and the feature at Belmont.
The good news about the final win was the BET of the Weekend. Goodnight Olive won the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint and made her first start of this season an easy win in Keeneland's Grade 1 Madison. Looked formidable on Derby Weekend in the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff but had a terrible trip - poor riding judgement I felt - and so I expected a big rebound today. The good news - she got clear in the lane and won - the bad news it was oh-so-close, far from a dominant win. Will be interesting to see how she moves forward from this race.
Then Sunday I went winless at Monmouth - sigh.....so for the three days I finished 10=for-28, a good 36% but it seemed a lot less than that with the money loss and the winless Sunday. The big event for next week is the stakes-filled Wednesday night card from Canterbury!
Social Media this week.......
While I didn't have a lot of wins on the race track I did have many interactions on social media as again I don't have many "live" friends to interact with, so I appreciate having "virtual friends" and in particular I was appreciative of the many well wishes on Father's Day from people I typically only interact with online. The first very cool social media interaction I'll share came when I had a forty minute online meeting with Ciara from Viking TV during which we were discussing my possibly hosting a TV episode and she asked if I'd be interested in hosting a SERIES of episodes. How cool is that :)
Early in the week I posted that Kim and I were about to go on a travelling odyssey with seven trips over the next sixteen months. In response to that my "adopted daughter," cutie Jillian exchanged messages with me.
Later in the week it was Jillian's birthday and again we interacted on two different occasions. And on Father's Day it was Jillian who first reached out to me - truly a special girl.
I messaged CBS-Miami anchor Lauren Pastrana more so for me than what she'd posted or said. In the past she's taken note and said to me that she appreciated me being a "loyal viewer" and I had had several exchanges with her during the Florida Panthers epic playoff run. So today I just wanted to let her know that despite no "big news" to me personally that I was still watching. Then on Monday (ok, technically not this week but I had not written up the week's journal yet) when I turned on the evening news I quickly noticed Lauren's hair looked far darker than usual. I pulled up a couple of pics quickly and certainly it was much darker this evening. I know how women are - they like to be noticed, especially when something as important as their hair changes. So I messaged her. Minutes later, WHILE ON THE AIR she messaged me back that yes indeed she'd redone her hair :) I thought that was very cool.
I had reached out to gal-pal Kimmy a few times recently and in each text I inquired about her health as I knew she was due to deliver her second little one. In reply to my notice about being asked to do a Viking TV episode she FIRST replied how cool that was, but then let me know that THAT day she'd given birth to her son. Such a sweetheart.
Karli Barnett, my gal-pal who was the weekend anchor for CBS-Miami and has since moved to Atlanta but we've kept in touch, had multiple interactions this week. First I exchanged several comments with her on her weekly Saturday evening live chat. What I found most interesting about these was that when the conversation turned to her sharing herself with people online like this and I commented to that effect, she replied how she liked doing that BUT the majority of her comments were about "ask me anything about my job and what I do, I love to share...." and all of OUR interactions have been much more personal in nature. This was particularly interesting to me because the day after the live chat she got around to seeing two of my private messages to her. Two weeks ago the conversation had circled around to travel and Karli had said she'd like to go to Greece and I remarked in the chat we were going there. Then I private messaged her she should take off work and join us - she responded positively (see below). Then later when the Viking TV thing came up I'd messaged her. You can see below that she seemed genuinely interested and happy for me and wanting me to follow up with her - again, very personal and not job-related at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment