[UPDATE\u2014Just after posting this, word came that I\u2019ll Have Another will not race tomorrow due to a developing injury. There will be a press conference at 1pm Eastern time. Complicated, complicated . . . \u00a0. Prayers for all.]<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cAround the turn and into the stretch . . .\u201d<\/p>\n
According to family lore, that was the first coherent string of words I put together as I toddled around after my father, a man who played the ponies with a fervor so dedicated that the first condolence call we got after his death was from his bookie. (His bookie was also his barber, which explained why long after Dad went bald he still \u201cwent for a trim\u201d a couple of days a week.) The bugler\u2019s call to the post, the nasal tones of the track announcer coming over my father\u2019s homemade crystal radio, the terminology of the Racing Form\u2014these were the soundtrack of my childhood.<\/p>\n
As a teenager and young adult, I spent every New Year\u2019s Day with my family in the Clubhouse at that jewel of racetracks, Santa Anita. I bought my first 45 rpm single (that\u2019s the vinyl version of a 99-cent iTunes download, for you young-uns), Love\u2019s \u201cOrange Skies,\u201d with winnings from a bet placed for me on one of those New Year\u2019s mornings. Years later, our parents long having rounded the far turn and headed for home, my sister and brother-in-law still come down the hill from Pasadena on the occasional weekday morning to grab breakfast at Clocker\u2019s Corner and watch the workouts, the glistening horses streaking by in the foreground, the snowtopped San Gabriels stretched out behind them like a movie backdrop.\u00a0Santa Anita is one of the places I miss most here in Ohio, where racing is mostly of the harness variety and a great deal seedier.<\/p>\n
I still follow racing\u2019s televised big days\u2014the Breeder\u2019s Cup, the Triple Crown races\u2014but I am conscious that there are, from many people\u2019s reasoned perspectives, big ethical problems with the sport. Racing, even under the best of conditions, puts horrific strain on the bodies of Thoroughbred horses; imagine weighing a ton and running a mile and a half on what are essentially four very long second toes. On top of that are practices that come under the general term \u201cdoping,\u201d essentially abusing horses to enhance performance or to mask the bleeding lungs that result when a horse is pushed past its endurance. Jockeys have their own set of abusive habits meant to keep their weight down. And then there\u2019s the gambling\u2014addictive, mostly illegal, and a draw for organized crime. So it\u2019s hard to justify the appeal, or to explain that in spite of everything that\u2019s wrong with horseracing I still believe that if I get to heaven it will look like Santa Anita. Mea culpa<\/em>, but there it is.<\/p>\nThis year, racing suddenly has a family connection of sorts again. I\u2019ll Have Another, the horse with a chance to become only the 12th Triple Crown winner in history if he wins tomorrow\u2019s Belmont Stakes, is a Santa Anita horse. The horse\u2019s trainer, Doug O\u2019Neill, is a friend of a friend of mine, Michael Amodei, a former colleague at Benziger who is now an editorial director at Notre Dame\u2019s Ave Maria Press. Mike was Doug O\u2019Neill\u2019s middle school basketball coach and O\u2019Neill\u2019s wife\u2019s 8th grade math teacher at St Monica\u2019s in Santa Monica. Mike and Doug stayed friendly over the years, and it was Coach Mike who first took a teenage Doug to Santa Anita and later got him a job there. Doug calls Mike a second father, and is in turn a kind of extra dad to Mike\u2019s teenage son James. James has autism, and one of the things he has fastened on with the passionate enthusiasm such kids have is horseracing. Doug gives a shoutout to James with every win. In May, at the Kentucky Derby, Mike and James stood with the O\u2019Neills in the Winner\u2019s Circle. They stood there again when I\u2019ll Have Another won the Preakness Stakes. And they\u2019ll be on hand tomorrow in New York, looking to be part of history.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a great human interest story, but like all human stories short of heaven it\u2019s complicated. Doug O\u2019Neill is under investigation for doping his horses, and has drawn the ire of the Humane Society and the investigative journalism of the New York Times. Doug denies the charges\u2014which are common in the cutthroat competitive world of racing\u2014and says he has paid fines in earlier cases because it\u2019s too expensive and time-consuming to defend himself in court. He will serve a suspension after tomorrow\u2019s race, win or lose.<\/p>\n
Mike says, \u201cIf Doug says he didn\u2019t do it, he didn\u2019t do it.\u201d My instinct would be to believe him, because although I don\u2019t know Doug I do know Mike. He\u2019s one of the most faithful, honest, principled guys I know, a mensch<\/em> of a Catholic man, a terrific husband and father and a loyal friend. One of my favorite memories of Mike is from 1987, when as a member of the bishops\u2019 Communications Committee I was able to snag tickets for myself and a number of family members and friends to attend Pope John Paul\u2019s address to the Hollywood community on evangelization in the media. At the end of the address, Mike hurdled 20 rows of folding chairs and elbowed his way through a scrum of Catholic celebrities like a Notre Dame QB headed for the goal line in the last seconds of a USC game. He was able to reach the Holy Father, and got a handshake and an \u201cI will pray for you, my son.\u201d Touchdown!<\/em> It wasn\u2019t exactly the kind of thing you\u2019d expect would make a twenty-something California cool dude glow from head to toe, but Mike was a man who\u2019d seen the beatific vision.<\/p>\nI know Mike\u2019s virtue is no guarantee of Doug\u2019s, though Mike has had a big influence in shaping the man Doug came to be. But for a lot of reasons\u2014the memory of my dad, my friendship with Mike, Doug\u2019s bond with James, the pride of Santa Anita\u2014I will be praying for a win tomorrow for I\u2019ll Have Another, and even more for a win for Doug in clearing his name. Dad will be praying from that Clocker\u2019s Corner in the sky. And I can\u2019t help but think Blessed John Paul II will be keeping his promise to Mike, and praying too.<\/p>\n
For more on the complicated story of Doug O\u2019Neill, see this post<\/a><\/strong> from the Baltimore Sun.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[UPDATE\u2014Just after posting this, word came that I\u2019ll Have Another will not race tomorrow due to a developing injury. There will be a press conference at 1pm Eastern time. Complicated, complicated . . . \u00a0. Prayers for all.] \u201cAround the turn and into the stretch . . .\u201d According to family lore, that was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,23,25,22,24],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blessed-john-paul-ii","tag-doug-oneill","tag-horseracing","tag-santa-anita","tag-triple-crown"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/197\/2012\/06\/Santa-Anita.jpg\" "\\"Santa")
<\/a><\/p>\n