Barbaro’s Brother Begins Career

Well, well! Today, the Daily News‘ Dick Jerardi reminds us today is a national holiday: It’s the second anniversary of the day Barbaro died! (If you’ve forgotten what a wonderful time that was in terms of Internet hilarity, please read the Field Guide to Barbaro Messageboard Factions. I can’t believe I forgot to submit it! I’m totally using that as an excuse.)

Anyway, the news is not all good on this oh so holy day. It turns out that Saturday will be the debut of Barbaro’s full brother, Nicanor. He’s in the eighth race in Gulfstream Park; Rockland, a son of Smarty Jones, is in the race right before him. Smarty Jones was the local horse the local media was obsessed with in 2004 (as opposed to 2006), but he actually began his career at Philadelphia Park (in Bensalem, of course) and won two races on the teevee instead of one. He did blow the Triple Crown after leading coming around the turn at the Belmont Stakes, but at least he’s still alive. (He is! I bet if you asked random Philadelphians if Smarty Jones was still alive, a majority would confuse him with Barbaro and say he was dead.) Jerardi writes that “something cosmic is at work here.”

Will Nicanor have the backing of God like Barbaro did? Considering how well that worked out for Barbaro, let’s hope not. But even if Nicanor is no good, don’t fret: There’s another Barbaro brother who’s about to start training.

Oh boy.

Barbaro’s brother Nicanor makingdebut at Gulfstream Park [Daily News]
Image by RNHurt used under a Creative Commons license

Take That, Barbaro: Better Horses Get Honor

Zombie Barbaro must be pissed! The Philadelphia Park Liberty Carousel in Franklin Square — that carousel is everything our founding fathers hoped and dreamed of — recently added replicas of two racehorses: Smarty Jones, who blew the Triple Crown on the backstretch, and Afleet Alex, who won the second two legs of the Triple Crown and cured cancer.

Did I hear that right? Two better horses — who won 66.7% of the Triple Crown races, instead of just 33.3% — got replicas and Barbaro is nowhere to be found? That’s what I’m talking about! Let’s get confirmation from Amy Needle, CEO of the carousel or something:

“These horses are made for us by our horse carousel-making company in Wichita, Kansas. We sent them pictures of the horses and these are exact replicas of racing carousel horses painted with Smarty and Afleet colors and numbers.”

It makes sense that there are only replicas of Alex and Smarty; unlike a regular racehorse, you can’t ride a carousel horse to its death.

Each carousel horse cost $30,000 of course, which in these booming economic times is no big deal.

Philly Carousel Gets Replicas of Local Winning Race Horses [KYW 1060]

Barbaro Haters Finally Get A Place To Gather

I don’t know what sells this more: The constant misspellings of Barbaro, or that Smarty Jones is still alive.

Either way, eh. I’m down.

Smarty Jones: Never let go, clearly superior to Barboro always and forever [Facebook]

Why we’re all jealous of Smarty Jones

There’s a great quote from from Ben Yagoda, journalist and Delaware writing professor, that goes something like: “Now that journalists have been given license to write like novelists, it is curious how many of them turn out to write like bad novelists.”

Now, please, trust me, I’ve written like a bad novelist far more than I’d ever like to admit, especially in overwritten leads. (Sometimes you’ll see this spelled “ledes” on this site. I’d like to make this standard, but, eh. They both mean the opening of a story.)

Anyway, I’m a big fan of leads, especially good ones, but especially ones that are just a little too serious. The best part of these — as opposed to just a regular, boring lead — is that they are usually well-crafted intros to stories, they just read like something written on the battlefield at Guadalcanal, rather than something written at a zoning meeting. They’re often from good writers.

With that, I’d like to chronicle some of them this year, and maybe we can have a contest next December choosing the most overwritten lead of the year, and give that journalist a prize before he or she punches me in the face.

Where were we? Oh, right. Leads. Today brings news of the first foal of one Smarty Jones, horse extraordinaire of 2004 (before he blew it on the final stretch like any good Philadelphia athlete). And Dick Jerardi — a very nice guy and a good writer — begins his story in the Daily News thusly:

Each New Year brings new hope in Kentucky. More than anything, Smarty Jones was about hope. The Pennsylvania bred emerged from the shadows of Philadelphia Park to give people hope in the spring of 2004, hope that anything was possible.

Okay, Dick. Maybe, maybe, maybe if this was Afleet Alex’s first foal, since that horse raised money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand. And not that I don’t like Smarty Jones, or the whole story, et cetera, but, come on: a horse boinked another horse. And he has ninety-one other baby horses on the way.

This story isn’t so much about hope as it is about how great it is to be Smarty Jones.

Smarty Jones sires first foal [DN]
Alex’s Lemonade Stand