Barbaro Updates: 312
updates are now here.
Update 2072: Another thursday afternoon, another afternoon spent with Mike Rea at Freedom Hills. My role has now been reduced to driver and watcher. Mike is now jogging around the ring on his own, and he looks pretty good doing it! I also spent time on the phone today with various horse advocates. I am traveling a steep learning curve getting my head around all that occurs with our racehorses that no longer run, go to the breeding shed or are retired to their owners' farms (many owners / trainers simply don't have farms).
Update 2071: Yeats, the overwhelming favorite, won the 2.5 mile Ascot Gold Cup: YEATS STRIKES GOLD AGAIN. He has now won this race twice and they would like to see if they can make it three:
Asked about the Melbourne Cup, for which he is a 10-1 chance with Stan James, O'Brien continued: "All those races are open to him, but it will be discussed with the owners.
"We would love to come back and win it (the Gold Cup) for a third time. Hopefully, we will be here."
Update 2070: Another warm morning this morning, but a little less muggy. I had three to ride. First out was Gator Nation. He went to the Tapeta track, along with Tim on Real Lace. I galloped a mile and a quarter, Tim and Real Lace a mile and a half. All was well. Second set I was on Kitty (My new name for the Tale of the Cat filly). She went to the dirt track with Tim on Nonpareil. We jogged back to the quarter pole and then galloped a mile and a half together. They went nicely, although Kitty was looking around a little at some of the construction work going on between the dirt track and the Tapeta track (we are building a second gap for the Tapeta track). When a horse looks around they gallop with less focus and off the bridle. Anyway, she will learn and she does continue to improve. Finally I rode Nautical Agent, she galloped a mile and a quarter. Tim was on Quick Quest, Robbie Walsh was on Fortuna. They galloped together a mile and a quarter, I galloped on my own. Nautical went very nicely and then high-stepped it home. As we came on to the track we saw Better Talk Now galloping down the lane. He looked good!
Update 2069: Today's feature race today at Ascot is the 2 and a 1/2 mile Gold Cup: YEATS SPEARHEADS IRISH HOPES.
Sabina Pierce and I hosted a presentation last night at Buzzy's. It was fun to see people out there, talk about Barbaro and his legacy, and hear Sabina's perspective as she clicked through her slide deck of images. A fun evening!
Today I post Wisdom from the Grandfathers for my frens Judy and Donna in Canada ( any other Canada frens, too)
How long have I known you, oh Canada? A hundred years? Yes, a hundred years. And many many 'seelanum" more. And today, when you celebrate your hundred years, oh Canada, I am sad for all the Indian people throughout the land.
For I have known you when your forests were mine; when they gave me my meat and my clothing. I have known you in your streams and rivers where your fish flashed and danced in the sun, where the waters said come, come and eat of my abundance. I have known you in the freedom of your winds. And my spirit, like the winds, once roamed your good lands.
But in the long hundred years since the white man came, I have seen my freedom disappear like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea. The white man's strange customs which I could not understand, pressed down upon me until I could no longer breathe.
When I fought to protect my land and my home, I was called a savage. When I neither understood nor welcomed this way of life, I was called lazy. When I tried to rule my people, I was stripped of my authority.
My nation was ignored in your history textbooks - they were little more important in the history of Canada than the buffalo that ranged the plains. I was ridiculed in your plays and motion pictures, when I drank your fire water, I got drunk -- very, very drunk. And I forgot.
Oh Canada, how can I celebrate with you this Centenary, this hundred years? Shall I thank you for the reserves that are left to me of my beautiful forests? For the canned fish of my rivers? For the loss of my pride and authority, even among my own people? For the lack of my will to fight back? No! I must forget what's past and gone.
Oh, God in Heaven! Give me back the courage of the olden Chiefs. Let me wrestle with my surroundings. Let me again, as in the days of old, dominate my environment. Let me humbly accept this new culture and through it rise up and go on.
Oh, God! Like the Thunderbird of old I shall rise again out of the sea; I shall grab the instruments of the white man's success---his education, his skills, and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society. Before I follow the great Chiefs who have gone before us, oh Canada, I shall see these things come to pass.
I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government, ruling and being ruled by the knowledge and freedom of our great land. So shall we shatter the barriers of our isolation. So shall the next hundred years be the greatest and proudest in the proud history of our tribes and nations."
Chief Dan George
Posted by: Harriette Brillianthawk at June 21, 2007 11:22 AM