Saturday morning quick picks

Both Jerry Bossert in the Daily News and Ed Fountaine in the New York Post report that on Thursday, NYRA president Charlie Hayward made a trip to the press box to quell any rumors of a shortened racing season in New York this year winter. I knew that I shouldn’t have written about it…

From the “man, we’re in trouble” department: I was recently following a thread on the Brooklyn Heights Blog about the possibility of a new middle school in the vicinity; it was surprisingly contentious, and I must say that I could never have foreseen the turn it took:

I’m advocating a school be built. Not a topless bar or a sausage factory or a
race track – a FREAKIN SCHOOL pal.

I know that racetracks have to battle some image problems…but to be in the same league as a topless bar or a sausage factory? Has it really come to this?

Unable to resist, I chimed in about Brooklyn’s glorious racing past, which elicited this response:

…I’ve lived here 25 years and never realized that Belmont was almost next door.
No wonder I can never find any of my friends on the afternoon when the Belmont
Stakes is run.

So I guess the good news is that lots of folks head out on Belmont day; the bad news is that someone’s lived less than twenty miles from Belmont for a quarter of a century and didn’t know it was there.

In very sad racing news, two-time Bernard Baruch winner Shakis was put down after suffering an injury during a workout at Hollywood Park. Here he is, on his way to the track at Saratoga in August, minutes before garnering his second Baruch victory.