pet connection

I’m off to San Diego, a little baseball, a little horse-racing and lot of driving.

Kim’s catching up with me at Del Mar, so it’s just Christie minding the shop for most of the weekend.

Don’t anyone tell Kim, but there’s a chance that we’ll meet up with Kristin Mulhall, who is the youngest trainer ever to have a horse in the Derby, in 2004 when she was 21. I’ve had a passing acquaintance with her for a couple years now, since she bought a racehorse with the intention of retiring him, a former Breeders Cup runner I’d been a fan of, Bluesthestandard. Poor boy made a lot of money over his career, and he was being run as a cheap claimer when she stepped in and said, “enough.”

I’ll find out more about Blue if I can catch up with her Saturday. Last summer he was enjoying his retirement at her place very much. His story is in our “Why Do Horses Sleep Standing Up?” and last summer I gave a signed copy to Kristin for letting us share it.

I keep up with her because someday I hope I will have property, enough room for a forever home for a couple of the old racehorses Kristin works to get off the track and into retirement.

Back Sunday, which just happens to be the day Derby and Preakness winner (and noted Belmont what-on-earth-happened-we’ll-never-know? horse) Big Brown is expected to return to racing, in the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park in New Jersey.

If you’re prone to playing hunches … the Mini Cooper Clubman I’m test-driving this week has New Jersey plates. Not sure what that would suggest a hunch bet for, though, which is why I don’t gamble.