"Morning Papers"

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

"Maximum Security" doesn't have racetrack manners. His trainer should be in question. It was a near disaster and other horses and/or their jockeys could have been seriously injured or worse. 

Racehorses have to understand the track and it is one of the aspects of training that occurs. The jockey didn't have anything to do with it. I don't think he was even aware Maximum Security was running into other horses, which is also something to ask. 

The owner of Maximum Security may want to retire him into stud service. The horse is a bit old to retrain to return safety to the racetrack. There is an issue about safety with this thoroughbred.

Maximum Security appears to be well bred, but, he has to behave himself.

There has been a trend in recent years to minimize the number of races a thoroughbred is exposed to in preventing injury. That is not a good idea. What trainers and owners are saying about their stable is that they are not strong thoroughbreds because they have to be baby cottled in order to reach a Triple Crown. The Triple Crown winners before that long stretch of no winners of the crown were never handled that way. 

The breeding counts, the training counts and temperament counts. So, in this instance, the rules were invoked and with a great deal of sadness, the Kentucky Derby was removed from Maximum Security's history. I think the management of the Belmont and the Preakness need to review the tape of the Kentucky Derby and ask plenty of questions before Maximum Security is allowed to run with this class of three-year-olds again.

"Good Night, Moon"

New Moon

1.1 day old moon

1.5 percent lit

Is the space race back with China? I thought the ISS was supposed to end it. Any "race" between countries means one thing, a lot of government spending. Does China really want this? And why?

May 4, 2019
By Adam Minter

In 1961, (click here) U.S. President John F. Kennedy set a goal of placing Americans on the moon by the end of the decade. Eight years later, on July 20, 1969, his ambition was fulfilled. For the next three years, American astronauts made regular, albeit brief, visits to the lunar surface. The journeys ended in December 1972, when Apollo 17 departed a lunar highland for the trip home. No human, much less an American, has ventured past low Earth orbit since then.

The Trump administration says it wants to change that. In late March, Vice President Mike Pence announced it was the “stated policy” of the White House to return U.S. astronauts to the lunar surface within the next five years. The short deadline is smart, if ambitious. But any new U.S. moonshot can’t claim to be a success if it only leaves behind another set of lunar boot prints. The mission must instead focus on establishing the technologies, infrastructure and commercial motives to ensure that such visits become more than a twice-a-century occurrence....