Thursday, August 31, 2006

Hirapour Obese?

-Hirapour finished a disappointing 5th in today’s feature at Saratoga, the NY Turf Writer’s Cup, a steeplechase affair going a little under 9 ¾ miles.

Did you put your hard earned money on a 1-2 shot carrying 164lbs? I know I didn’t. Although the title of this post is a slight exaggeration, Johnathan Shepard’s other horse entered in this race, carrying 16lbs. less withstood a very shaky last jump to hold on for one length victory.

-With exactly seven days to go until my first trip to Vegas in over a year, today marks the beginning of my official Sin City Countdown. Next Thursday at this time, I’ll be halfway home to my den of iniquity.

Ten men, mostly from the greater NYC area will converge for what is becoming a parody of itself – the Vegas Bachelor Party. No twisting of my arm here. The last time I was in Vegas, I quit my job and extended my stay by 50%. This time around, I want to give huge props to my boy Uptown.

This is Uptown’s first appearance in this blog, and without him, my Vegas planning would be much more of a headache. Uptown, a Vegas resident was asked by yours truly to do some research on the sports book director at the hotel we are staying at. Uptown went out of his way to actually make the call for me. The call? Three days of reserved booths at the sports book on the opening weekend of the NFL season. Uptown earned a free trip to the hotel pool and some other niceties.

-I’ll be getting some college football warm-up this weekend as me and Rodriguez are heading down to Eugene to catch the season opener for the Oregon Ducks. Oregon opens their season with Stanford in a key early season Pac-10 match up.

Our day will start at 8am as we travel the necessary 2 hours down I-5 into lovely Eugene. After a few spotty weather days this week, the forecast calls for a high of 90, with a 100% chance heavy tailgating. Rod has been attending Ducks games for a few years, and finally has his own season ducats. I’ve never been to Autzen stadium, so I am looking forward to a pretty good time.

I probably won’t get a chance to bet on any of the races this weekend until Monday, although there is an outside chance I’ll be in for Sunday as well. With a 3-day weekend ahead, Friday 5pm can’t come soon enough!!

1 comment:

Joe Danaher said...

Even though I knew in my head the old fella Hirapour was carrying way too much weight, I went with my heart and tossed $10 on him for old times sake. Enjoy the bale of hay I just bought you old fella.