Monday Hot Walk: The Godfather Has Spoken and Rags to Riches

Union Rags

Great start to the Road to the Roses.  Let's get right to it.  

• Risen Star-Mark Valeski ran a nice race, but I really think El Padrino (Beyer of 98) is a class above.  From my amateur eyes it looked at if Rosie Napravnik went to the whip on Mark Valeski about eight times in the stretch.  Javier Castellano showed whipped, but only used twice.  Not really any other horses to talk about from this race.  A quick search reveals El Padrino is translated in English to The Godfather.  So that's pretty cool.  
• Fountain of Youth-Too bad Algorithms scratched, but Union Rags was probably going to beat just about anybody yesterday.  Discreet Dancer looked very comfortable on the front end and I thought with those modest fractions he could pull away.  Alas, he didn't have anything for the stretch run and Union Rags blew by him.  
• Two big performances this weekend.  Which one do you think was better?
• There are 21 individuals in our league so I've changed our Old Friends donation goal to $210.  Please donate so we can achieve our goal by Derby Day. 
• Standings-Things were really tight at the top after the Risen Star, but People of Iowa's Stable raged in front after the Fountain of Youth.  I'm guessing that stable 'power horsed' both winners.  Nice work.  Four Roses Stable (love me some Four Roses Small Batch and Single Barrel) currently stands in stalking position.   It was a good start and there's plenty of racing ahead. 

I'm from small county in Kentucky.  Growing up in the 1980s you had to really search for music outside of country, pop, and classic rock (seriously, jazz just didn't exist).  This song came out when I was 15 (yeah, I just dated myself...so what).  Looking for wannabe angst-filled music you had few avenues to explore: MTV (I didn't have cable OR satellite), older siblings of friends who were into cool music (few and far between), and....Columbia House Record Club.  It was like iTunes pre-Internet.  I bought The Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me along with 11 other similar albums around this time.  Best penny I ever spent. 

I remember this being really cool back in the day.  Now, not so much.  Kinda cheesy isn't it?

WHATEVER! You just don't understand!  Leave me alone!  I'm going to my room! 

Gotham and John Battaglia Memorial are up next.  Talk to you all on Friday.  Have a great week!