May 07, 2005
TIME FOR A LITTLE BURGOO
Big day in Kentucky. It's the 131st running of the Kentucky Derby.
Here's a link to a package of stuff I worked on for the last two weeks. It's the brainchild of graphic artist David Williams. Online producer Vidisha Priyanka did a great job of presenting Williams' graphics and information.
I was born in Balitimore, home of Pimlico Race Course and The Preakness. The horses have always been a big part of my family on my mother's side. I can remember going to Pimlico as a teenager and being amazed at the size of the race horses and their sinewy muscles. As each leg and chest and neck muscle flexed, it sometimes seemed their skin could barely contain all that strength.
As my mom recalls:
I have a special place in my heart for the Kentucky Derby. For your Nanny, it was as if it were a holy day!We always had to leave 4:30 mass even earlier on Kentucky Derby Day, so that we would not miss the Post Parade or 6:04 start. Even if her Jeff was serving!
It's been 10 years since Nanny left us. She would have loved to have been here to watch the race with her great-grandson.
And it would have appalled her, I think, to see the way some politicians are playing with things in Maryland, as track owners threaten to pull out of the area unless they get permission to put more gambling outlets at their facilities: [Link]
AT THE GLORIOUS Walters Art Museum yesterday, you knew why thoroughbred horse racing is sometimes called the sport of kings. On the eve of Preakness Week, they showed off the George Stubbs collection of 18th-century horse paintings. The animals appeared ready to spring to life, snorting and whinnying, and strut their magnificent stuff.The mayor of Baltimore stood before one of the paintings, of a great beast called Whistlejacket, and said lovely things about "the Super Bowl of racing." Business leaders boasted of the Preakness' bountiful economic impact, and TV lights and cameras lent the proceedings an aura of glamour.
The problem is this: Behind the glitter was an uneasy sense of watching a once-lovely lady trying to smear on enough rouge to cover up wrinkles and lines because company's coming any moment.
Yesterday's gathering came a day after executives at Magna Entertainment sent a Canadian cold front through Maryland's political corridors and its racing industry. Three years after buying the Pimlico and Laurel race tracks and vowing a "solemn commitment" to breathe new life into the operations come hell or high-rolling slot machines, the company threatened to cut off its financial pipeline unless "other sources of revenue" are developed.
Nobody around needs translation: not the governor who has staked his entire legacy on slot machines, nor the legislature that has cast them aside three winters in a row, nor the estimated 18,000 people in Maryland's horse racing industry who wonder whether their livelihoods can survive without slots.
So yesterday at the Walters, there was this procession of boosters reminding us of the glories of Maryland racing - and slipping into the conversation, not quite as an afterthought, the shadow of catastrophe.
Mayor Martin O'Malley linked horse racing to the city's renaissance. He said millions will turn on their TV sets on Preakness Day "and see us, and talk of the tremendous comeback the city's making." But, before leaving, he added, "Those who warn about the morality of gambling - where's the morality of doing away with 18,000 racing jobs?"
Aris Melissaratos, state secretary of business and economic development, sounded a similar theme. The Preakness, he said, was like "an annual Super Bowl between the Ravens and the Redskins, or a World Series between the Orioles and the Nationals." It is a national celebration, and Maryland must hold onto it.
C'mon, folks. What are a few slot machines among friends?
Posted by Jeff at May 7, 2005 10:26 AM | TrackBack