That's it - or, six minutes from now, it'll all be over. Tough Arlington meet, in more ways than one. Believe it or not, attendance is actually going to be up over 2008, a rarity in racing, but handle will drop significantly from last year, even on-track, where there were more people. Full DRF report in a couple days.
It'd been a long time since a rider in Chicago suffered a really serious injury, and no one here at all close to racing is any way close to getting past the terrible injuries suffered first by Rene Douglas, more recently by Mike Straight. The riders, especially, have seemed shell-shocked much of the summer, and who could blame them?
Junior Alvarado outlasted James Graham for leading rider. The Douglas injury clearly opened a path for these two guys, but both made the most of opporunities handed them. Alvarado showed talent since he came here unexpectedly last summer. It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here.
Horse of the meet? Peyote Patty could get some votes. I mean, yeah, Gio Ponti was by far the best animal to show up here, but does his one win in the Million outdo something like 4-4, all by open lengths, at distances from 6fs to 8.5fs, and on both Poly and turf, with a closing day $100K stakes win? That's Peyote Patty's line from the summer.
The Poly evened out the last part of the summer, remaining pretty well bias-free, but settling into a slow-playing surface. We had strangely persistent northeast wins all summer, and early fractions were bafflingly slow much of the time. What did we learn from the '09 season? Dunno, but hoping something comes to me before April 29, 2010, when racing resumes in the Chicago suburbs.
Thursday - on to Hawthorne, back to 'conventional' dirt.
