Blonde Champagne is now hosted at a new cellar:  www.blondechampagne.squarespace.com.

I need you to pack up the clothes you’ll need in a small dark place for a week, unmarkred cash, bathtub gin, and Cheez-Its.  MOVE MOVE MOVE.  We need to go.

no questions at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

-We are soberly informed that everything–the race, the post parade, the tides, the reunion of Addicted to Jane, the Democratic Primaries of the 1980 Presidential Election, everything–is on Zenyatta’s own terms, and we’re just, you know, witnesses to it.  Finally, some perspective.

-Interview with Al Stall, Jr., trainer of 5-1 Blame.  “Well,” he says with absolutely no inflection, “I’m excited.  This is fun.”

“Do you know you’re going up against Zenyatta?”  He hadn’t heard, I’m sure.

-I like Todd Pletcher’s overcoat.  I bet it’s at least London Fog.  He and his overcoat are asked about what they’ll be looking for in terms of body language as Quality Road nears the gate to see if he’s in the mood to enter it or not.  I’m thinking a lot of biting and planting his feet while, like, refusing to enter the stall.  Horses are mysterious like that.

-Zenyatta starting to Thriller video her way to the paddock.  Her groom makes a shushing motion.  Where was he for the past 48 hours?

-Mike Smith, you are not exactly painful to behold.  But, I’m sorry, the whole teal and pink deal somewhat detracts from the solemnity of the moment.  He looks like a Miami Beach dance club owner who’s putting in a bid on a Victorian in San Francisco.

-Zenyatta, dancing herself sideways.  Someone holds up a neon pink poster, yelling her name to make sure she she reads it as she goes by.

-This poor horse.  She paws at the cobblestone leading to the paddock, not a fan of any of this.  Cops are making two-minute-warning, bird-flapping STFU hand motions.  Because what Thoroughbred doesn’t like sustained shrieking from tens of thousands of small girls and their bourboned  mommies?

-Either ESPN’s audio feed is down, or this is the best broadcasting decision since somebody canceled :  There is utter silence from the anchor desks.

-Joe Tessitore:  “And so.  She has.  ARRIVED.” I do wish they’d brought James Cameron on board to direct this crap.  It needs more anvil-from-the-sky drama, more self-importance, more Leonardo DiCaprio falling from great heights.

-”That was an interesting tour for Zenyatta,” he adds.  Meh.  She should have gotten the Downs Tram Special, which includes a photo station with a cutout of Secretariat and a box lunch.

-Mike Smith is jogging down to the paddock.  Get there faster, Mike.  The Escalator of Destiny waits for no man.

-Well, this is what we’ve been waiting for:  The lights are on, and Zenyatta is underneath them.  If only we could throw in a replay of Calvin Borel vs. Javier Castellano vs. YouTube on the Jumbotron, ESPN’s Hype Trifecta circuit would be complete.

-What th– nobody said Paddy O’Prado was going to be here!  There’s a grey in the program, children, and that changes everything.

-Okay, I’ve known the outcome of this race for two weeks now?  I’m kind of already familiar with how this is going to go?  And I still feel like I’m going to throw up.  I blame the vodka-Jack Daniels-Slurpee-absinthe-gin-Quaaludes cocktail, and also George W. Bush.

-This is The Field That Never Ends.  It’s like the Kentucky Derby, only minus twenty-minute features on what Michael Jordan is wearing.

-Hank Goldberg likes Blame to win.  I think we all know whose fault this is now.

-Jerry Bailey has busted out his Magnificent Manly Gloves for the occasion.  He says to Mike Smith:  “God be with you!”  We’re one “And also with you” from making this Trackside Mass, but frankly I don’t know what an actual Catholic church would do with this many people in attendance.  Throw in a Chevy raffle, maybe.

-Bob Baffert’s hair agrees to an interview.  What does he think about Zenyatta?  Even though his own horse is something of a second favorite?  What does he think about all of his pre-losing?

-Eleven hours and fifty minutes into the coverage, eleven hours and forty-five minutes of which has been Zenyatta-focused, Joe mentions that you know what, another horse might win this race.

-Quality Road, now one of the Borg, docilely enters the gate.

-The sun sets upon Bob Baffert’s hair.  It’s been a long day, people.

-C’MON DOVER, MOVE YOUR BLOOMIN ARSE!

-Zenyatta, last, way last, as she wills it.  Her head is jerking away from the dirt in her face.  Seriously, it’s like trying to do football drills in the line behind Pig Pen.

-’Round the bend.  Mike Smith:  “Um, you wanna, like, pick it up a little?  There’s a horse race going on?  And I’m under a little bit of pressure here?”

-Trevor Denman with the call:  “Zenyatta is dead last.  Zenyatta trying to pick up the pace.  YOU HAVE CREATED THE POSSIBILITY YOU MIGHT NOT WIN NOW, ZENYATTA.  Mike Smith is looking for somewhere for Zenyatta to run.  Zenyatta needing a hole.  YOU BETTER NOT BLOW IT, ZENYATTA.  ARE YOU GOING TO START RUNNING YET, ZENYATTA? ZENYATTA!  DO YOU HEAR ME, ZENYATTA!?!?!??!

-There she goes, by way of the Gulf of Mexico.

-The terrorists–yes, all of them–step out in the streets of Afghanistan and shoot their AK-47s in the air so as to celebrate their eternal victory over the United States of America.

-That was a brilliant finish, and a really, really, really, really ….really quiet grandstand.  It’s totally like this time I was at a Saturday morning faculty meeting and the dean said, “We’re going to end twenty minutes early today,” and then when the cheering stopped, he said, “One of our presenters just had a heart attack, and he’s in the ICU.”

-Jerry Bailey to Mike Smith:  “Hey, buddy.  How ya feeling?”  Still going with God?

-Mike is “a little bit devastated right now, Jerry.”  Gee, why? Everybody’s just been asking you to do the best you can, no pressure!

-Blame jockey Garrett Gomez is dourly asked “how he feels about beating the great Queen.”  Okay, so did he actually get out a tire iron and start whaling on Elizabeth II?  No?  Can the entire crowd stop screaming “J’ACCUSSSSSEEEE!” as he rides by?

-Did Zenyatta’s trainer ever prepare himself for losing a race?  Well goodness, I’m awfully glad we waited until this particular moment to raise the issue.

-Mike Smith kisses Zenyatta next to her mane before dismounting.  The world sniffles.

-Joe:  “We both picked Blame to beat her, and you almost feel guilty.”  Once more, Churchill Downs becomes an avatar of the Catholic Church.  He and Jerry speak in near-whispers, as is appropriate to a national tragedy of this magnitude.

-That is one apologetic-looking Winner’s Circle.

-”Mr. Hancock, what does it mean to you to make little girls everywhere cry themselves to sleep for the rest of their formative years, more than likely sending them to lives of web cam soft porn and alley prostitution?”

-Guess what!  We care about college football again!

juuuuuuuuuuuust about 10,000 words; I demand a replica trophy at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

I shouldn’t be this tough on ESPN.  The producers must feel obligated to keep re-running such exciting footage, since it’s not like the populace has instantaneous, limitless, and free access to it from a variety of angles or anything.

3:21 PM: We have achieved Zenyatta, and she is “relaxing.”  She is surrounded by razor wire on one side, a Louisville cop on another, and what appears to be the remains of a Jeep Wagoneer on a third.  This is approximately as relaxing as small to medium-sized military coup.

3:22 PM: The Juvie, for two-year-olds.  Much fuss is made over the expectation that we’ll see all these horses again next year!  right here!  in the Kentucky Derby!  which the winner will win!

Arazi emails Joe Tessitore from his stud stall all, “O RLY?“

3:22:10 PM: Street Sense tweets Arazi all, “YA RLY!“

3:23 PM: Please tell me somebody out there got all of that RLY business up there.  I mean, I Google imaged and stuff.  Horse racing references + LOL-speak Internet memes are Venn circles with a somewhat narrow overlap.

3:23:30 PM: Please tell me somebody out there got all of that Venn circle business up there.  I’m good for so very few math references.

3:24 PM: Anchor Desk Action!  Jerry Bailey, moins gloves,  is introduced as having won fifteen of these races.  He passes on a sterling opportunity to throw a gang sign and kiss two fingertips at the camera.  You’re a better man than I, Jerry.

3:25 PM: We are informed that Street Sense, having won the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile here at Churchill, “came back the following day to win the Kentucky Derby.”  Well, that is just one heck of a bounce-back.  Also, he apparently conducted his way from the paddock to the gate in a slightly modified DeLorean.

3:26 PM: Jaycito goes somewhat wide, in the sense that “somewhat wide” is located in Topeka.

3:27 PM: Uncle Mo is the winner.  “Just wait for the hype to begin on Uncle Mo leading up to the Kentucky Derby!”  I look forward to his 19th place finish with great anticipation.

3:28 PM: Jerry Bailey mentions that he was concerned with Uncle Mo “relaxing.”  Well geez, just stand him next to some razor wire in the middle of a used car lot–that’s how it’s done.

3:29 PM: Dear Everyone Unfamiliar With Horse Racing Who Just Heard Joe Say, Quote, “He Broke His Maiden By Fourteen and a Quarter Lengths”:  That does not mean what you think it means.

3:30 PM: Uncle Mo, and to a somewhat lesser extent jockey John Velazquez, are interviewed at the Trackside Anchor Desk and Martini Lounge.  Uncle Mo’s ears are pricked forward.  When a horse does this, that means he’s alerted to the presence of something potentially dangerous to his health.    That’s pretty much all you need to know about that.

3:31 PM:

MEMORANDUM

TO:  Janine Edwards

FROM:  Your Hair

CC:  All of Human History

RE:  Today’s Coif

Please inform when you have selected a uniform color.

V/R, etc.

3:35 PM: Bill Nack weighs in on Zenyatta.  Seems that with a win today, she’ll be considered amongst the greatest horses of all time.  Oh, and if she doesn’t, the republic will not survive.

3:36 PM: Joe timidly raises the infinitesimal possibility that Zenyatta… that Zenyatta… that… that she… mightnotwintoday.  He is immediately struck down, leaving but a smoking pile of carbon.  Commenting on the blasphemy is Randy Moss, who says that the count is currently 0-for-10 for horses more accustomed to racing on synthetic surfaces, as Zenyatta is.  He prefaces this with a disclaimer that that this 0-for-10 trend is not, however, “overwhelming,” so not to worry.

3:37 PM: Jerry’s like, yeah, I was looking to Jaycito as my barometer on that issue, and, ummmmm… yeah.

3:39 PM: Jaycito passes in the background, having  just crossed the finish line.  “Hey, guys!  Did I hear my name?  Wha’d I miss?”

3:40 PM: Uncle Mo’s owner in the Winner’s Circle:  “I’m gonna get so drunk tonight!”  ESPN correspondent Prissy McPrudy PantsCrease snaps, “This is a family show.“  I must say, I’m with Prissy; ESPN must, after all, maintain its sterling reputation for kid-powered, G-rated entertainment.

3:41 PM: Goldikova is one of the prettiest horsies I have ever seen, but girlfriend seriously needs to Nair her chin.

3:48 PM: Goldschlager for the great Goldikova!  Cheers!

4:06 PM: Sorry, I decided to cut the Goldschlager with Everclear and may or may not have blacked out for a few months.  In any case, it’s the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and there’s a minor amount of exclaiming over the notion that the internationally magnificent Goldikova might be somewhat, just slightly, in the media shadow of Zenyatta.  Maybe.  A bit.

4:15 PM: Little Goldikova and jockey Olivier Peslier at the Kiss and Cry.  Everyone discusses Frankie Dettori and the fact that he would race-ride the Lord on a Palm Sunday donkey into an approaching legion of Romans if it meant finding a hole.

Peslier rides off, saying, “The best filly has won.  My turn–now, Zenyatta.”  Goldikova stalks off all, “… Bitch.”

4:16 PM: Goldikova’s trainer tries to attack-hug her on the way to the winner’s circle and fling a French flag around her neck; Goldikova reacts precisely the same way I would, and bolts pretty much into the last stall of the third-floor press box bathroom.

4:17 PM: This is so freaking typical of a male-dominated field whenever a women it doesn’t like becomes successful:   Character assassination.  Goldikova is mean, you know.  She’s a mean horse. “Around the barn, Goldikova is not a mare to be messed with.  She’s very territorial.  She doesn’t like people going into her stall, and she makes that known.  She’ll bite anything that walks by.”  Oh, dearie me, does she also hire illegal immigrants to do her catering and frown occasionally?

4:19 PM: Footage of one of Goldikova’s grooms running alone alongside the turf course, screaming, “Allez-y!”  He skips and leaps on the dirt, yelling and pumping his arms.  The entire thing takes maybe ten seconds to play out.  It’s unaffected, unhyped, unplanned, unpimped, utterly gorgeous, and I cannot believe it made air.

4:25 PM: As an antidote, here’s Chad Johnson standing next to an enormous furry representation of himself.  This is the sort of image I desperately wish had existed solely as part of After School Special about Not Offending Minorities, possibly starring Candice Cameron and Lisa from Saved by the Bell, but no– it’s real, it was focus-grouped, and it’s an iPhone app.

4:43 PM: Dirt Mile.  Hey, look, it’s Mine That Bird!  Remember Mine That Bird?   He was the– LOOK AT THE PRETTY WHITE HORSE BEHIIIIIIIIIIIND HIM!  HE’S SO PREEEEEETTTTTY!  Who’s that white horse, and will he be my friend?  I want a picture of him on my TrapperKeeper.

4:48 PM: ESPN sees its Calvin Borel-Javier Castellano pairing in the starting gate and raises itself a walk down Mine That  Bird Memory Beaten Track:  Remember how he had to stage a car wash and sell popcorn outside Wal-Mart to fund the costumes for his Derby trip?  That was great.

4:51 PM: Ew, the white horse got all dirty and stuff.  I don’t like him anymore.

4:52 PM: Zenyatta Existence Check:  She likes the bare light bulb hanging in her stall!  She’s a WIZARD!

5:02 PM: Overhead shot of Churchill Downs and downtown Louisville in the distance.  If you look closely, you can still see the vapor trails of despair I left behind two years ago after grading the national AP exam.

5:04 PM: Dammit, ESPN, you almost had it.  The outgoing mayor of Louisville manages a cogent, 20-second congratulations speech, followed by a non-fumble on the trophy handoff, and then Prissy takes control.  He gazes to the heavens for several minutes, gathering his thoughts on the moment, this most unexpected turn of events, the fact that he’d be standing here in the Winner’s Circle with the victor’s connections, as he has for the past 48 hours, and he says, “Now…” in the fashion of a man preparing to read an excerpt from a previously undiscovered synoptic Gospel, and then says:  “When you saw the end of the race, that very close finish, did you have a sense of who’d won?”  Not to be outdone, one of the owners, for reasons known only to himself and the lead paint chips, yells “On to Dubai!” into the mike well after coverage has been sent back to the Kiss and Cry.

5:06 PM: Quality Road vs The Loading Gate Flashback to last year’s Classic, when the horse was all, “I’m fairly sure I do not wish to enter this small metal contraption with this tiny person on my back.  I wish to speak with my agent, if you please, and also Oprah.”  Grainy footage and the theme music from To Catch a Predator accompany.

5:07 PM:  Todd Pletcher:  “Yeah, we maybe made some mistakes trying to get his $900,000 ass in the gate.”  Like what?  “Whipping him.”  PETA members everywhere:  EEEEEEE—LEVENTY!! Horse racing fan everywhere:  *facepalm*

5:11 PM: Zenyatta has gone unmentioned for, like, a solid two minute period.  The National Guard has been called, and the Department of Homeland Security has raised the international threat level.

5:14 PM: Dear England:  Due to the fact that you have given the world Top Gear, I’m going to pretend that this whole “Mutton Chops” business never happened.  You are, however, on notice.

5:25 PM: Da Turf.  The silks on Champ Pegasus are a white and black striped shirt with a flat red cap.   Please, please tell me this horse is French.

5:25:30: Aw.

5:36 PM: Awkward:  We now must speak to victorious jockey Frankie Dettori, who is suddenly “so accomplished around the world!”, “charismatic,” “the best jockey in the world,” “the biggest race jockey in the world,” and our very good “buddy.”

5:39 PM: Oh, to have been present and with a camera phone the second Chantal Sutherland finds out that Mike Smith has positively identified Zenyatta as “the only female who’s never let me down.”

5:42 PM: Bill Nack is Nacking it up again, and this is showing up as a totally different program on my DVR, which, of course, determines the course of the sun and the moon.  We’re at THE!  LAST!  COMMERCIAL!  BREAK!  BEFORE!  ZENYATTA!  RUNS!  and I gotta pee.

Finis Until The Flush

no rest for the bladder at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

12:31:30 PM: What are your expectations for this glorious day, broadcast panel?  I expect we won’t get past the top 90 seconds without somebody pimping footage from yesterday’s fight, that’s what I expect.

12:31:31 PM: I should start charging for psychic readings.

12:33 PM: Attention Jerry Bailey: we’ve not yet passed the one-year moratorium on using Tiger Woods as a Standard of Awesome.  Put it away.

12:34 PM: I’m… I’m pretty sure that’s Pirates of the Carribbean music they’re using behind race footage to set up the fight footage.  What a grand use of the rights permission budget.  Better choice:  “Yakety Sax.”

12:35 PM: You know what, I never do tire of this image of Calvin Borel distance-punching Javier Castellano with his face.  I am going to make a screen grab of it and post it on my office door during PMS,  not unlike the way in which Alan Shepard’s secretary warned his fellow astronauts that The Icy Commander was not pleased.

12:36 PM: “So, let’s advance the story!”  Yes, Joe Tessitore, let’s.

12:36:30 PM: Oh… by “advance,” he meant “stomp into the ground again, some more, until it is the very paste of organic matter.”

12:37 PM: Also, Life at Ten continues to make her way to the finish line.

12:37:30 PM: Josh The Pilot enters the room just as Randy Moss says, “She was cramping.”  He leaves immediately.

12:38 PM: Now we have an opportunity to talk about Zenyatta!  Finally.

12:39 PM: “Throughout the entire day, we’ll tell you what Zenyatta’s doing.”  I’m fairly sure what she’ll be doing right up until about 6:25 PM:  She’ll be pooping, or she’ll be hanging her head out over her stall door carefully considering her next poop.  But you… you keep me updated on that, ESPN.

12:41 PM: Juvie Turf:  BTW, Bobby Flay’s horses are way more important than the other horses.  He‘s been on Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook Off.

12:42 PM: Zenyatta:  Still has a tail.

12:44 PM: It’s Kenny and Hank!  Sad Horse and Horny Horse are decently separated, but the B side of The Watery Martini Band’s latest 45 continues to serve as the music of choice to cinematically score the odds.

12:44:25 PM: Oh… oh no.  Rough Sailing is down.  Oh, not good.  Jockey Rosie Napravnik is up and walking around, though.

12:45 PM: Pluck, trained by Todd Pletcher, wins, but to a near-silent crowd and the almost total disinterest of ESPN, because Rough Sailing has gotten up and tried to keep running before falling again.  Oh, geez.

12:46 PM: Jerry Bailey immediately and properly blames the entirety of Europe for the spill, because the exercise riders, jockeys, and trainers from across the pond have been complaining that the turf wasn’t watery and surrender-y enough.

12:47 PM: I mean, you have to hand it to ESPN, which will travel to the edges of the known universe and back to add another tether to the  Zenyatta Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon:  Mike Smith (WHO IS RIDING ZENYATTA)  is speaking to Rosie Napravnik.  This provides an excellent opportunity to provide live shots of  Zenyatta deigning to acknowledge the existence of the ground:  She’s looking at it!!!111!!ones!!11

12:49 PM: Sprintin’ time.  Trainer Carl O’Callaghan is Irish, and proves it by wearing a cap, being poor when he reaches America’s shores, and looking like an 84-year-old Gen Xer.

12:51 PM: Joe’s Post Parade Profundity, sponsored by Jessica Simpson: “At the Kentucky Derby, there’s only one post parade.  But you come to the Breeder’s Cup, and this scene repeats itself fourteen times.”  Well, yes.  Also at EVERY SINGLE RACE TRACK ON EVERY SINGLE DAY OF RACING.

12:53 PM: Slightly more people in the grandstand today.  That’s good.  But Jerry Bailey just said “thrust.”  That’s bad.

12:54 PM: Ramon Dominguez refuses to twirl, point, or otherwise do anything with his whip which a seven-year-old would also do on her way out of a baton recital.  Ramon is referred to as “a cerebral jockey.”  If that’s what it takes to be “a cerebral jockey,” Laffit Pincay would have been a freaking genius.  Laffit Pincay would have flat-out head-rammed anyone who asked him to make sex-ay with his whip for the ESPN promo camera.  Ramon slides by with a folded-arm stare.

12:55 PM: Interivew.  Of.  The. Weekend:

JERRY BAILEY: (long, involved question about possible bias on the track)

RAMON DOMINGUEZ:

RAMON DOMINGUEZ’S HORSE: (chuff, chuff, chuff, chuff)

JERRY BAILEY:  …I’m not sure Ramon can hear me.

RAMON DOMINGUEZ:

RAMON DOMINGUEZ’S HORSE: (chuff… chuuuuuuuuuuuffff)

EVERYBODY WATCHING: That is the smartest thing any living object has said in the past 55 minutes.

1 PM: Touch Screen Randy busts out his index finger.

1:02 PM: Big Drama needs to drop back, because much as I enjoy your average British accent, if I have to hear Trevor Denman uncork one more “Big Dramer,” I shall place my torch in my momo’s boot and look for aggro.

1:03  PM: Ramon Dominguez finishes ninth.  His horse is all, “…chuff?”

1:09 PM: Hank is twice referred to as “Hammer.”  How very unfortunate.

1:11 PM: GARY STEVENS!:  “Nothin’ says lovin’ like Rock Hard Ten semen for your mare’s oven.”

1:12 PM: That notwithstanding, Coolmore is now my favorite stud farm, because it shows me pictures of fooooooaaaaals, with their morning hair manes and short little tails.  Fooooooaaaaals!

1:13 PM: UPDATE on the condition of the Churchill Downs spires:  They are still there.  Nick Zito confirms that “When you see those spires, there’s something about them.”

1:14 PM: I have yet to see a non-awkward trophy presentation.  They’ve got fourteen of these.  I mean, it’s not like it’s a one and done.  That’s almost an entire football season’s worth of attempts to do this without making me and everyone in earshot want to die on the spot of proximal  humiliation, and ABC, ESPN, and the whole entire Breeders’ Cup Board of Directors are looking an awful lot like the 2008 Detroit Lions.

1:17 PM: “When you think of horses?  You think of Kentucky?  And when you think of Kentucky?  You think of horses.”  This commentary is sponsored by Cheech Marin and High Times Magazine.

1:18 PM: I’m really, really glad that somebody thought to get Rick “Restaurant” Patino’s take on the fact that there is horse racing in Kentucky.  This segment needed a moral compass, and by gum we’ve got one:  Rick pronounces the proper order of priorities in life as, quote, “God, family, basketball, horseracing.”  Disappointingly, Rick is not immediately sucked right straight into hell by the Fallen Angel of “…Seriously?”

1:23 PM: It has been a demonstrated fourteen seconds since Jockey Brawl 2010 has been mentioned, so let’s roll tape!

1:25 PM: …Oh sweet merciful niblets, is this entire weekend on a time loop?  Because it’s all rushing up into my face like a sitcom flashback:  The light pole porn, the celebrity chef knob slobbering, the gate-loading FAIL, the solidly disappointing Kraft Macaroni and Cheese which comprised my dinner.

1:26 PM:  Jim The Nephew has this cartoon movie, Spirit: The Brave And Wild  Plains Horse And His Generically American Indian Friend Defeat Some Mustache-Wearing White Men, Learning Many Important Lessons Along The Way, and the horses don’t talk, because that would be stupid, but you can tell apart the girl horses from the boy horses because the girl horses have slantier eyes and also wear mascara.  I have until now regarded this as somewhat unrealistic, but then there’s Goldikova.

1:25 PM: Can’t have a discussion of another horse without a Zenyatta cram-down, who stands with her head hanging out of her stall all, “I can order Latisse from an online Canadian pharmacy too, honey.”

1:27 PM: Randy Moss And His Touch Screen, on anti-death threat Facebook Account Patrol, carefully suggests that “not from a sentimental point of view, but from a value point of view,” a 4-5 Zenyatta might just not be the highest-paying choice in the Classic.  Death threats rain down upon his Twitter account.

1:27:30 PM: A stunned Joe points out that Zenyatta has captured so much attention!  She’s pulling in almost all of the handle!  Why could this be?

1:28 PM: Extended shot of Zenyatta standing very still in her stall

1:28:30 PM: Oh… um… “The Making of Secretariat.”  Well, that’s fine, I guess, although I cannot imagine why ABC-ESPN might sanction a 90-second advertisement for a Disney movie.

1:30 PM: Turf Sprint.  Okay, I have to look up the lineage of “Unzip Me.” Mm-hmm, mm-hmm… Mom is “Escape With Me” and Daddy be called “City Zip.”  See, you don’t get this kinda-subtly-dirty-but-not-quite kind of homage to the English language in any other sport.  The XFL tried its gallant best, but all we got out of that was “He Hate Me,” which isn’t quite the clever lyricism you’re going to find in, say, a Tudor Minstrel.

1:32 PM: Trainer Bret Calhoun classes up the joint with a detailed discussion of abscess draining.  I very quietly, very deliberately put down my dish of vanilla pudding.

1:35 PM: Call to Post sounds like what I imagine the Call to Post would sound like at a meeting of the High Times editorial board.

1:37 PM: Yakov Smirnoff was apparently consulted to provide the broadcasting notes on the field, as Unzip Me is described as having “very much early speed.”

1:37:30 PM: Post Parade Fashion Don’t Alert:  Julien Leparoux’s silks don’t match his horse at all.

1:38 PM: Aw, sweet, Patrick Valenzuela is wearing the Jockey Cam!  It’s the My Follicle, Myself Show!

1:39 PM: Oh dear, three greys in this race. There needs to be a Coupled Entry Grey Option for emergencies like this.

1:40 PM: Robby Albarado wins the internet for having the most self-conscious, least silent-movie quality to his Living Mugshot.  No twirling whips, no “….Llllllladies” smirk, no Justice League hip poses– he’s just standing there, kinda swinging his arms and darting his eyes side to side, all, “Can I have my firstborn child back now?”  He might as well be standing in line at the DMV– at the bathroom at the DMV, for he also looks deeply pained.

Eventually he succumbs to a nervous second-grader style stance–hands under armpits–but, after tiring of this, he timorously holds up one index finger.

“He comes with the trash talk,” Jerry says upon seeing this massive show of arrogance.

1:41 PM: Robby’s mount, Central City, is still attached to his lead pony and loping along at a forty-five degree angle.  He looks like I did the night of my twenty-first birthday, when I found it necessary to earnestly convince the random Stanford Hall resident walking through the lobby that I could probably  drive if I really wanted to. Well, if he doesn’t win here, Central City has a bright dressage future.

1:42 PM: The infield looks so lonely.  “One puking UK student?” it says.  “Just one?”

1:43 PM: The last two liveblog entries mentioned drinking, and that’s because I need one to numb the shock of the fact that ESPN is actually doing something useful here– showing the route of the race, discussing the condition of the turf, and touching on probable jockey strategy.  The anchors are discussing the race at hand.  I give it thirty more seconds.

1:43:30 PM: Oh.  I just noticed that the odds for the Classic are constantly along the side of the screen, which is pretty much the next best thing to having a Zenyatta Stall Poop Cam in a little box above the crawl.  Zenyatta, not unlike God and Lady Gaga, is with us at all times.

1:48 PM: This overhead replay of Jamie Theriot’s winning move on Chamberlain Bridge is just magnificent.  It shows the viewer that the jockey must make dangerous, split-second decisions, and I imagine that if someone took my picture from thousands of feet in the air, the effect would be tremendously slimming.  I must speak to my agent about this.

1:56 PM: Trophy presentation is relatively squirm-free, right up until the owner says “‘Preciate it,” pretty much as if the mayor-elect of Louisville were handing him his receipt and a 10% off coupon for next week’s Thursday Buffet.

1:56:30 PM: Well, that makes it a broadcast– we have a heartfelt discussion of abscesses in the winner’s circle.

1:57 PM: BLONDE CHAMPAGNE BREEDERS’ CUP ZENYATTA COUNTDOWN CLOCK POP QUIZ

“The Quest for Perfection” is:

A.  The ironic title of some college douchebag’s fantasy football team

B.  The name of the first two pages of a goth fourteen-year-old’s novel about a sparkly vampire who falls in love with a goth fourteen-year-old

C.  ESPN’s justification for Zenyatta’s existance

Text your answer and RUININGEVERYTHINGFOREVERYBODY to code 666.

…chuff? at:  mbe@blondechampagne.com

grateful at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

3:02 PM: Bill Nack welcomes us all with some leaves, and, fully realizing that this broadcast will suffer from a… a certain lack of something (GARY STEVENS!), cheers everybody up with footage of horse tombstones.

3:03 PM: Affirm and Alydar are shown as a single entry in the Awesome Horses Are Awesome Montage.  I find this offensive, but that’s probably because I married an identical twin who despises the lumping together of sentient beings.  Except for penguins.  You can lump penguins, all right, because unless they start getting a PC Congressional caucus off the ground, they don’t much care people saying, “Well, they’re all just alike.”  So far.

3:05 PM: It is confirmed that the ladies are running under the lights, and all of a sudden the entire broadcast takes on a Paris Hilton, mares-and-fillies-wearing-corsets quality which does not exactly bode well.

3:05:30 PM: FOALS!  All better now!  Nice, clean, innocent foals.

3:05:31 PM: Bill Nack just said “weaned,” like, in front of people.  Annnnd I need another shower.

3:07 PM: Overhead shot of Churchill Downs.  Hey, so this is the Breeders’ Cup?  The Super Bowl of Racing, were Super Bowl not a trademarked title?  And there are, like, a lot of spaces in the parking lot.  I mean, a lot.  Josh The Pilot and I recently visited Churchill Downs on a non-Derby, non-Breeders’ Cup, non- Zenyatta Yadda Yadda  day, and I think we had to walk farther than these Super Bowl attendees did.  At least spread it out past the Early Times billboard, people.  Let’s at least make an effort to not suck at this business of attending horse races.

Then again… November in Kentucky.  California’s out there all, “Hey!  We’re economically circling the thunderbucket and taking the rest of you with us, but at least it’s 72 and sunny at Del Mar!”

3:11 PM: Jerry Bailey is wearing awesome gloves.  They’re these leather numbers that James Bond would have totally owned if he were a chauffeur and also 5’5″.

I feel it is necessary to point out that  Joe Tessitore and Randy Moss are not wearing gloves at all.

3:11:30 PM: Randy Moss announces that Zenyatta is “easily the most popular racehorse in America.”  This is my husband’s cue to wander into the coverage.

JOSH THE PILOT: Who’d he say?

ME: Zenyatta.

JOSH THE PILOT: Oh.

ME: (am physically unable to tear gaze from Jerry Bailey’s go-to-hell gloves)

JOSH THE PILOT: Didn’t that horse win the Kentucky Derby?

ME: No.

JOSH THE PILOT: Then she was in it, at least.

ME: No.  You’re thinking of the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic.

JOSH THE PILOT: …No, I’m pretty sure I’m not.

ME: How do you know?

JOSH THE PILOT: Because I’ve never even heard of that race.  Is it a kind of  breast cancer awareness thing, or…

ME: I think you’re thinking of Rachel Alexandra, who won the Preakness.

JOSH THE PILOT: Okay.  Was Z-Horse in any of the Triple Crown races, at all?

ME: No.

JOSH THE PILOT: …

ME: …

JOSH THE PILOT: How long does this go on?

ME: Two days.

JOSH THE PILOT: How long have you been watching?

ME: Eleven minutes.

JOSH THE PILOT: Don’t delete any of my truck races.

…And thus endeth our discussion of The Most Famous Racehorse In America.

3:12 PM: Have you heard?  Everybody‘s talking about Zenyatta!

3:13 PM: It’s a BABY!  It’s a BABY WEARING TINY LITTLE JOCKEY SILKS! My uterus, of thee I sing.

3:14 PM: Caton Bredar reporting, horse side:  Caton’s pony is wearing an ESPN saddlecloth.  The optimal decor here is the image of plummeting ESPN Zone stock blazed into the felt, but as usual it seems that no one has checked with me on this.

3:15 PM: Kenny Mayne and Hank Goldberg with a handicapping update.  Hank is wearing gloves that are kind of like Jerry Bailey’s, the effect of which are offset by his freaking windbreaker.  He’s wearing a windbreaker.  Dude.  It’s not my six-year-old nephew’s soccer game.

ESPN’s brought its decorating A-game to its temporary studio for the weekend.  It pretty much consists of two teeny-tiny statues of horses perched on either side of the desk.  Kenny’s looks sad.  Hank’s looks horny.  Let us say no more about this.

3:16 PM: As Kenny and Hank discuss the odds, horrible pornstache cocktail music begins streaming from somewhere.  It certainly isn’t coming from me.  WTF?  Where is that coming from?

…No.

Really, ESPN?

3:17 PM: Discussion of Garret Gomez’s Thursday spill, for which the music blessedly fades away.

3:17:30 PM: Let’s talk to race caller Trevor Denman, who just happens to be holding his binoculars at a rakish, yet professional, angle!  It’s kind of like how when the President of the United States wants to look important and serious, he somehow always manages to be wearing a boring suit and sitting in the Oval Office, with no Katy Perry posters tacked up behind him.

3:18 PM: Breeders’ Cup Marathon.  Precision Break is all, “I WAS TOLD THERE WOULD BE NO GATE LOADING IN HORSE RACING.”

3:19:30 PM: …Okay!  I just changed the bedsheets, had a workout, cooked dinner, finished my second book, gestated a child, and built a car.  What’d I miss?

WTF, they’re still going?

3:20 PM: Prince Will I Am places.  He would have won if he had a less obnoxious name.

3:20:30 PM: Jerry Bailey and his gloves FTW in the Understatement Olympics: “So I have to imagine that Johnny was pretty ticked off right here.”

3:31 PM: Calvin Borel and Javier Castellano do their very best to show the dignified face of horse racing, here at the Word Series Super Bowl Thunder Dome of the sport.  This is just about the most super-awesome, gossipy thing TO EVER HAPPEN IN THE HISTORY OF HORSE RACING, and ESPN is describing it as though one’s knitting a scarf while the other winds his wool:  “Look at this incident.”

“And now we have fighting.”

“Obviously, something was said.”

I am particularly glad that the network has chosen this particular moment to become mature, understated, and delicate in its sensibilities.  Athletes yelling at one another?  With shoving?  Oh, mercy me!

3:31:30 PM: Borel’s brother is described as “the one with a receding hairline.”  Really, dude?  You’re gonna piss this family off?

3:32 PM: Martin Garcia, looking as though he has just peered over the lip of hell, is interviewed by Jay Privman.  He’s covered in dirt, his eyes are red, and his voice isn’t too steady.  Jay gets down to the nuts and bolts of the story:  Was it pretty scary?

“YES, YOU STUPID IDIOT, I BECAME UNSEATED FROM AN ENORMOUS POWERFUL ANIMAL GOING 35 MPH AND WAS NEARLY CAST INTO THE HOOVES OF MANY OTHER ENORMOUS ANIMALS ALSO GOING 35 MPH.  IT WAS PRETTY SCARY.”  This is what I would have said.  But Garcia, fortunately for us all, is not me, and merely fixes Jay and his question with an incredulous stare before saying, “…Yeah.”

“Well,” Jay says cheerfully just before Garcia begins openly weeping, “shake it off.”

3:32:30 PM: What I can’t shake off is the Plenty of Good Seats Still Available status of Churchill Downs, if this overhead shot is anything to go by.  Speaking of my six-year-old nephew’s soccer game, there were more people at it.

3:33 PM: Prince Will I Am has been DQ’ed.  See.  Shouldn’t have been there to begin with.  Get a decent Christianly named horse like That’s What She Said in there.

3:34 PM: Eldaafer’s owner has deemed an enormous wad of Big League Chew as an appropriate accessory for the winner’s circle.  Between this and the WWE playlet on the way to the jock’s room, I just don’t understand why more people don’t give horse racing the respect it deserves in this country.

3:35 PM: I am traumatized by Joe Tessitore’s tie-shirt combination.  All kinds of stripes going all different directions.  Now I know how Martin Garcia felt.

3:36 PM: Joe is wearing gloves, too, but they look like the ones the girls on my high school’s cross country team wore when the coach made them run all over the West Side in February.  Feh.

3:37 PM: For some reason, the introduction of the Juvenile Fillies Turf demands frantic, ice-dance AfroCuban drums.  Good, ESPN.  That’s much more appropriate than the professional bugler blowing “Boots and Saddles” for the START OF THE HORSE RACE.  I suppose, however, I should consider myself fortunate that the Ode to Pornstache cocktail music seems to have been chucked.

3:38 PM: Winter Memories is the pretty grey one and is therefore supposed to win.  My plastic tea set and Barbie doll say so.

3:39 PM: ESPN praises its own camerawork.  Thirty seconds later, Javier Castellano is naught but an elegant blur on the far side of the track.  Free Barbra Streisand Vaseline lens job, Javier.  No wrinkles.  Lookin’ good.

3:42 PM: Oooooohhhhhhh, touch screen up at the anchor desk.  Forty million dollar’s worth of equipment and satellite link-ups to confirm that the grandfather of Winter Memories’ owner, John Phillips, once owned the Pittsburgh Pirates.  I salute you, ESPN, and your stripped-down, no-nonsense approach to bringing the world its sports here in the worst economy since the Great Depression.

3:44 PM: …And yet, still nothing but what an intern found in Hobby Lobby’s clearance aisle to show Kenny and Hank’s tables to its best advantage.

3:45 PM: Every last one of these fillies looks royally pissed off.  They’re all but excluding the one with the tangliest tail from eating at their lunch table in the cafeteria.  Apparently there was some sort of prom dress-based altercation back at the barns.

3:46 PM:  …Oh.  What’s happened here is that they’ve been loaded in the wrong gate, backed out, circled, and re-loaded.  I’d be pissed off too.

This is so embarrassing.  Well, at least it’s not like anyone is there to see it happen.

3:48 PM: THUNDERTHUNDERTHUNDERTHUNDERTHUNDER… As the aunt of five nephews, I honestly had no idea young women could be so loud.

3:51 PM: More Than Real owner Bobby Flay hugs his horribly-coated girlfriend/wife/companion, Stephanie SVU. Oh honey. Those  silks are reflecting gamma rays off the magnetic North Pole, and I know that you probably love your mama, but you don’t have to wear the rejects from her Nixonian era coat closet.

4:04 PM: There’s an objection.  ESPN stops all analysis and discussion so that we can listen in on Garrett Gomez talking on the phone during the investigation.  BREAKING NEWS:  A jockey says “I don’t feel like I did anything!” to a bunch of  stewards.

4:05 PM: Also BREAKING NEWS:  Todd Pletcher didn’t lose something!

4:15 PM: ESPN features Calvin Borel, who pounds on the Churchill Downs rail and says, somewhat unfortunately, “When you hit it, it’s gonna bounce.”

4:20 PM: The director has waited for the one Churchill bugler who sucks, and has made the executive decision to feature him note to note, wall to wall, in respectful silence.

4:24 PM: All the single ladies!  All the single ladies!  It’s the Filly and Mare Sprint, and Mike Smith has the gall to ride, acknowledge, look at, or discuss a horse other than Zenyatta.  Manho.

4:25 PM: There is nothing to say about the rest of the field in relation to Zenyatta, so they post parade past without comment.  You poor dumb broads.

4:27 PM: Switch is discussed in relation to “a Sports Illustrated spread.”  Why is this is pretty much the only time I hear of females featured in Sports Illustrated?  Ones who aren’t in bikinis or are busily pretending that the WNBA has a point, I mean?

4:39 PM: I need a drink.

4:41 PM: The outriders are wearing official 2010 Breeders’ Cup parkas.  PARKAS, Trustees.  Did the necessity of ordering these– I don’t know–suggest anything to you?

4:42 PM: Okay, this has got to be the weirdest post-race interview I have ever seen.  Victor Jamie Theriot literally rides up to the booth and conducts it from the back of Dubai Majesty, cricking his head up at Jerry’s gloves and the touchscreen like he’s screaming at his dude friend who lives in a second-floor college town ghetto apartment to throw him his pants.

4:44 PM: Drink coming through.

4:45 PM: When I come back, I am staring at the butts of like sixteen jockeys, mid-race, and Joe saying, “Jerry, how much do you like JockeyCam?”  This looks like an excellent time to leave the room again.

4:46 PM: It’s GARY STEVENS!  In a commercial for Rock Hard Ten’s siring services!  Okay, I greatly appreciate the inclusion of Gary in today’s proceedings?  And I’m trying very valiantly not to think about the fact that he’s essentially hawking semen?  But it sounds like the chick doing the voiceover was picked up on waivers from a 1-900-SPANKYWENCH commercial.

4:57 PM: Drink coming through.

4:59 PM: Oh for the sake of coleslaw:  Here comes Calvin Borel for the Juvenile Fillies under the escort of an entire phalanx of Louisville cops, as though he’s going to start tearing Hulk-like through the paddock, eating the silks-wearing baby and kicking the fillies in the head, Norris-style.

Let me tell you something:  I’ve been in Louisville.  You’re looking at like a third of the police force, and its manpower might be better applied to places other than the gently flowing flowerbeds of Churchill Downs.

5:02 PM: Just when I had given up on everything good and pure in this world… it’s Bob Baffert And His Hair.

5:05 PM: Somebody named this poor girl “IzSheLegal.”  Somebody somewhere’s not telling me something.

5:06 PM: “Delightful Mary”–aw,  that’s nice.  Delightful Mary will have a lovely life complete with little dishes of potpourri and powder rooms painted the barest shade of dusty rose.  “IzSheLegal”?  Gonna run a softcore Internet site called GreatBigJigglyJugs.com once she retires from the pole.  Carousel horses, we call them.  Shame, really.

5:08 PM: Jerry Bailey attempts to have an interview with Calvin Borel as he warms up Tell A Kelly.  Calvin’s answers are as follows:

“You know how it is, Jerry.”

“Everything’s fine.”

“I’m fine, Jerry.”

Something tells me that this is not how Jerry and Calvin discuss life in your average non-miked conversation.  I am far more entertained by the patter of Tell A Kelly’s hooves on the track, the sound of her breathing picking up with the pace.  If I close my eyes and don’t inhale and imagine that I’m wearing a cowgirl hat and am holding reins and sitting in a cracked leather saddle instead of a slightly bent couch and pretend I don’t have to pee again, I’m in Colorado.

5:18 PM: For the supposed benefit of winning trainer Stanley Gold, Jeannine Edwards uncorks what is by far the most inappropriate pronouncement of the day, and I include in that statement Calvin’s request to security forces to let him go so that he can, quote, “f’n kill him”:  “I can feel your cell phone vibrating right here nonstop up against me!”

It’s a ripping shame I’m a married lady.  I bet that line works some wicked wonders up in the jock’s room.  The moment is only slightly improved by the fact that Gold was introduced with the following:  “He worked  her and worked her and worked her and earned it.”

5:20 PM: Seeing as we’ve got a seriously talented filly here who just went 6 for 6, it’s very important that we gather the thoughts of Calvin Borel, who came in seventh, on the matter.  What we have here is a man with a British accent speaking to walking jockey with a hardcore Cajun accent as an extremely bald man bats away the microphone.  The result still makes more sense than anything anybody in the entire history of The View has ever said.

Also, the owner of Awesome Feather has a terrifying laugh.  It’s anime-villain level.

(Delightful Mary, it is necessary to add, showed.  IzSheLegal?  Ninth.  I’d also register GreatBigJigglyJugs.net while I was at it, if I were her.)

5:27 PM: Back to Kenny and Hank’s desk, where someone has pushed the sad horse and the horny horses right up against one another, sad nose to horny rump.  It’s worse than it sounds.

5:31 PM: The absence of the sun and arrival of artificial lighting reveals that Kenny’s sportscoat is, in fact, plaid.  And somewhat furry.  Return unto us, O Helios.

5:32 PM: “They installed the permanent lights in April of this year for this moment– to host the Breeders’ Cup in prime time.”  And I, for one, am so glad they did.  All the better to spotlight loaders putting the wrong horses in the wrong gates as the Jockey Ultimate Fighting Fight Club holds its annual convention in the infield.

5:33 PM: How wrong I was to assume that ESPN wouldn’t know how to capture new viewers’ interest.  There’s a full-length, no holds barred, dramatic-closeup pounded, wide screen HDTV feature on… the lightpoles at Churchill Downs.  Have they heard of this thing called “the incandescent lightbulb” all the way over in England?  Are there shadows?  What if one burns out?

Here’s the thing:  Prime time racing is a big deal.  It’s the first time something of this caliber has been done in American racing.  I work in the industry, so I am going to care about it.  Major handicappers are going to care about it.  Jerry Bailey, but possibly not Jerry Bailey’s gloves, is going to care about it.  Dude down the bar yelling at someone to switch over to the Continuously Burning Yule Log channel for better action?  He.  Does not.  Care.

5:41 PM: It’s all pastiness, all the time in the Gold Room, where one should hope that the bottled water comes for free, and also roller skate rental.  I note a wide array of alcoholic beverages, which I have seen consumed from time to time at a racetrack.  But while negotiating your way through a $10,000 buy-in?  That courts disaster, my friends.  I’d definitely need it afterwards, however, as given my handicapping history, my ten grand would have a greater chance of increasing if I stuffed it in a couch cushion and set it on fire, or donated it to the Christine O’Donnell campaign.

5:42 PM: Filly and Mare Turf.  The break for this race always reminds me of why my womens’ college had to cancel our “friendly”  “non-graded” “non-violent” “non-South Bend Police Department attended” intramural soccer games.

5:43 PM: I can’t figure out if the Inspiring Music for the post parades is coming from ESPN or the grandstand.  Either way?  I cry plagiarism on behalf of the guy who composed the Suite of Walking Around the Educational, Non-Showcase of Nations Part of EPCOT.

5:44 PM: The pathetically over-enunciated way in which Joe says “Hot Cha Cha” makes it abundantly clear that he’s been looking forward to mentioning this race all day.

5:45 PM: Frankie Dettori And His Accent.  If we just cede over the rest of the broadcast to him and Trevor reading the phone book with the actual races in a little box in a corner of the screen, we should shoot right through the roof in the department of Classy Veneers.

5:48 PM: Speaking of– oh good, it’s Kenny and Hank.  Apparently the FCC has received some calls:  Sad Horse and Horny Horse have been separated slightly.  Not enough.  But slightly.

5:49 PM: …Yeah, they were serious about the Pornstache Holiday Inn Lounge Combo providing the background music for discussion of any and all bet placing.

5:51 PM: I’m beginning to understand why doctors advise against binging and purging.  Racing fans go something like four months between the end of the Belmont and the beginning of the Breeders’ Cup, and then it’s like eighty-seven hours of continuous coverage.  This is akin to going on a hardcore, twigs and berries, working out even during Mass by doing glute squeezes in the pew weightloss plan, and then one day flooring it down Avenue F-It– you wake up and order an eight-course breakfast with a wedding cake as the appetizer.

Or maybe it just seems that way since I stop and write every time something strikes me as ludicrous.  And where that’s concerned, I’m over 3300 words at this point and we’re not even a third of the way through.  I’m just saying.

5:52 PM: Forever Together is holding her tail really, really high in the air as she waits to load.  Like, dangerously high.  But then she lowers it again, and somewhat disappointingly enters the gate with clean hooves.  In politics, this is what we call “a missed opportunity.”

5:54 PM: That was a race:  spectacular turf spotlight, thrilling finish, Trump-sized upset.  Can we talk about the light poles some more?  I really need to know how each individual outlet is wired, and whether or not the bolts are made of eco-friendly material.

5:56 PM: Edgar Prado rides victor Shared Account up to the broadcast booth, and the reverse angle of the desks reveals that Hank and Kenny are separated from Jerry and Jerry’s gloves and Randy and Hot Cha Cha Enunciator with what is essentially a clear plastic poncho hung from a backyard wedding tent.  Of all the bitter disappointments this event has had to offer, this is by far the most crushing.  I take solace in the fact that all parties are wearing pants.

6:09 PM: Somebody in the broadcast booth drops a “fabulous.”  I’m fairly sure it’s not Hank.

6:11 PM: Ladies’ Classic.  I’m sorry.  I cannot reconcile myself to this shunning of “Distaff” in favor of “Ladies.”  It makes the race titles sound like a Fort Lauderdale dance club during spring break:  “All ladies with lip tattoos admitted free on Wednesdays!”

6:12 PM: Your Thomas the Tank Engine Usefulness Moment of the evening:  There’s a height comparison between Ruffian, Rachel Alexandra, Secretariat, and Zenyatta, who is taller than anybody at a whopping 17.1 hands.  I have to say this is somewhat more effective than NBC’s Mine That Bird vs. Rachel Alexandria version, which consisted of GARY STEVENS!–and I quote myself–”measur(ing) their respective worth by standing next to each and ascertaining which horse he could see over.  This is not a joke.”

6:21 PM: I take serious issue with Havre de Grace’s mane. It’s cut all blunt-like and at the same length.  It’s essentially the equine version of Effron Hair, and let us just say there’s a reason why the vast majority of the population does not cite Prince Valiant as fashion inspiration.

6:24 PM: Todd Pletcher interview in the paddock:  “Todd, you have two horses in this race.  Which one do you think will lose more?  I mean, will they lose at the same pace, or will one lose slower than the other, or do you expect to lose by several lengths with both?”

6:30 PM: John Velazquez points at you with his whip!  JOHN VELAZQUEZ KISSES YOU!

6:31 PM: On the other hand, Life at Ten’s lead pony is missing half a tail.  From the looks of things, it was clearly lost in some sort of tragic crimping iron accident.  I would hate to be a lead pony.  You need to be all about boosting the self-esteem of the main attraction, and I am Dustin Hoffman.  I want the credit.

6:33 PM: Jerry Bailey yells “JOHN!” at Velazquez to see how Life at Ten is warming up.  Velazquez, awesomely, whirls around in the saddle and checks over both shoulders so as to ascertain the origin of this disembodied command.  I can see how this could be disconcerting.  You’re in the delicate process of preparing for a somewhat major horserace, and all of a sudden the Voice of God comes screaming at you inside your helmet, and God sounds suspiciously like Jerry Bailey.  I’d sure want to know who was following me too.

6:34 PM: Jerry wants to know if John’s mare is warming up any better since the last twenty second he asked.  No?  Why not?  IS IT THE LIGHTS?  IS IT BECAUSE I KEEP SCREAMING YOUR NAME, UNBIDDEN, FROM THE DEPTHS OF YOUR VERY SOUL?!

6:36 PM: Unrivaled Belle, meanwhile, does not like the looks of the gate, the track, the other horses, the lights, the toteboard, the loaders, the jockeys, or the infield.  She finally loads, but not before first promised ice cream.

6:37 PM: “Life at Ten, no interest,” says Trevor as she determinedly shuffles herself far behind the pack.  I’m totally stealing that.  Time to clean the toilet?  “No interest.”  Would I like to see a 36-hour 3D animated series starring JarJar Binks?  “No interest.”  Care to sit on Larry King’s lap?  You see where I’m going with this.

6:38 PM: Unrivaled Belle is, in fact, so tetchy  about this entire affair that she tries to beat everybody back to the barn, but only winds up delaying herself in the winner’s circle.  Kent Desormeaux:  “She throws her body down every time I turn her loose!”  Kent needs to write dance pop lyrics when he retires.

6:40 PM: One of Todd Pletcher’s horses has officially lost a Grade I race by so much that it warrants a second interview.

6:48 PM: ESPN somehow manages to cram freaking Zenyatta into a feature story on how the winners’ flower blankets were fashioned.  Please also discuss India-Pakistan relations, the best places to purchase a sump pump, and the origin of the typography, gentlemen.  Your determination enamors me.

6:49 PM: Most.  Uncomfortable.  Winner’s Circle.  Presentation.  Ever.  Kent Desormeaux looks like the world’s worst-dressed speed skater and the CEO of Mont Blanc congratulates himself on “a win for Mont Blanc” and has to be reminded to hand over the victory watch to the owner (we’re all officially out of patience at this point; “HAND HIM THE WATCH,” says the ESPN reporter as everybody just kind of stands around waiting for the trackside bars to re-stock.)  And then–yes, they managed–it gets worse:  Upon finally receiving the stupid watch, which necessitates Kent Desormeaux essentially having to twirl in place to get out of the way, the owner says, and I quote, “Now I finally get to know the time for the first time!”  And everybody laughs and laughs and laughs, because if they don’t, there will be bloodshed.

6:50 PM: Kent must now re-twirl to make way for the other owner, whose eyes are very small slits and seems to have begun pre-gaming in August.  “I’m sorry.  I have lots of adddddrrrrrrenaline,” he announces.  No doubt.

“This is like minestrone for the mind!” adds For Some Reason Never Being Allowed to Know What Time It Is Guy.  I want this presentation to go on and on and on, and then I want Calvin Borel brought in to calm everybody down.

6:52 PM: BTW, Zenyatta is racing tomorrow.  “Now all attention turns to this six-year-old mare!” I am told.  Good, because she sure has been shafted so far.  The Little Zenyatta Head Icon occupying the lower left third of the screen confirms.

6:55 PM: Everybody has that greasy-haired, eye-sagging, all-sounds-are-unbearable look of an all nighter, only IQ’s seem to be sinking. Even Goldikova, ensconced in her stall and free from all watch presentations, is like, “Red Bull and Pixy Stix me.”

6:59 PM: The camera backs respectfully away from one last look at the lights.  They’re signing off.

They’re signing off!

THEY’RE SIGNING OFF!!!!

… Zenyatta?… Where’d you go?

4480 words, be-atches at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

The Readers, you are part of the family too.  I thank you most kindly for your generous prayers and offers of assistance.

For those of you in the Ohio valley, here are the last ports of his lovely cruise, complete with guestbook link.

the bereaved at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

My dad started hemorrhaging yesterday and we were told he only had a few hours.  So Josh The Pilot and I drove through the night to Atlanta because a flight from there would get to Cincinnati the fastest.  He stabilized slowly and is now out of ICU–the doctors are currently trying to figure out how, because they were basically telling us to start planning the funeral–but obviously the situation is fluid.

We thank you for your continued prayers.

In case you missed their astute analysis, here’s a transcript:

JONES TEH PUPPEH: Rrrrrr.

LAUREN TEH PUPPEH: RRRRR!

JONES TEH PUPPEH: Rrrrrr.

LAUREN TEH PUPPEH: RRRRR!

CHRISTIAN TEH PUPPEH: stop the violence!!!1111ones!!111!

KORS AND GIGI TEH PUPPEHS: (pooping in the corner)

still more applicable than anything going on at The View at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

*****

So there were these poop-generating sentient beings in my rented house, the house which the owners expected us to vacate within an hour’s notice in the event of a realtor showing.  The sentient beings, I decreed, were about to become extremely familiar with the backyard.  I’ve done a cowgirl’s work, with actual cows on the back of an actual horse, but I was beginning to develop the distinct impression that an Appaloosa and yelling “GIT” wasn’t going to speed any semblance of the crate-loading process.

Unloading, as previously established, the puppehs were good at.  When Josh The Pilot and I released them into the yard, everybody scattered and started peeing, including me.

Josh has a right powerful smartphone, but it’s not tremendously puppy-suited:

So we switched to this ancient device known as “a camera”:

So this is how you know that you have too many puppies:  They don’t all fit in the frame, and you don’t even notice.  You get like half a tail in one of the picture and it doesn’t even matter because HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THE ONE WITH THE PATCH OVER HIS EYE, IT’S LIKE HE WAS MADE OUT OF ATOMS GOD SPECIFICALLY CREATED TO CONSTITUTE ADORABLENESS.

We didn’t get to name the litter, as will be made obvious the instant you learn what this one was called:  Gigi.

Gigi was the runt and perpetually worried, so, smelling the Zoloft on my  hands,  she began to follow me immediately.

Meals were a procedure which rivaled only The Feeding of the Multitudes in terms of complexity, noise, and logistical nightmares.

oh, and the SMELL at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com