Tuesday Hot Walk: Hutcheson, Updates and Valentines

Jail Blazer era Z-Bo wishes you a rosy St. Valentine's Day.

• Not much action last weekend, but the weeks ahead are going to be chock full from here on out. 
• As you know, the Road to the Roses website is up. 
•  Thunder Moccasin won the Hutcheson Stakes.  Ever So Lucky scratched the morning of the race which gave opening for Thunder Moccasin to win as the heavy favorite.  Pletcher and Velasquez connections at work again and the colt earned a 93 Beyer Speed Figure over 7 furlongs.  
• Oddly familiar game offered by Winstar Farms is up.  You need to enter by February 18th and Derby tickets are the grand prize.  Apparently, this is the third year of the contest.  How'd I miss that?
• Nice video update from Jill Byrne @ Churchills Downs.  Love the setting in the paddock with the snow falling.  Hope they keep these coming.  Love Jill. 
• There's a lot of current press about horses under the radar.  This is a great way to add some greenhorns to your stable that others might not know about.  I have my eyes on a few but I'll never tell.  
• The field (I miss the field bet on Derby day, don't you?) is top choice in the first Kentucky Derby Future Wager @ 9/5 while Algorithms (awesome name) is top individual choice @ 8/1.  Castellano deciding to ride him in Fountain of Youth over Union Rags probably had something to do with that. 
• Three pretty good prep races this next Presidents' Day weekend with the El Camino Real, St. Vincente, and Southwest.  Should be interesting.  I'll be spending Monday in the pastoral confines of Portland Meadows.  Keeneland's got nothing on that place.  

The wife and daughter are out of town until Friday.  You know that means...I get to watch sporting events on television in real time.  Seriously, between fatherhood and living on the Left Coast it's almost impossible to see things as they happen.  Without Twitter I probably would still be ignorant of Whitney Houston passing away.  First live viewing of the week was my beloved Louisville Cardinals falling to the Syracuse Orange for the first time in 37 years (kidding).  Not a fun watch.  Can the Trail Blazers beat the Wizards in the Rose Garden tonight to balance things a bit?  Surely, right?

I picked up some of those elementary school-type valentines at Target featuring NBA players (complete with tattoos) just because I thought they were cool.  Really have no idea what I'm going to do with them.  I'll leave you with this haunting rendition of an old standard to get you in the mood for love.  Happy St. Valentine's Day.