Weep No More, My Lady

The sun shines bright on our old Kentucky home, just as it does for each of us who longs for his Indiana home on the banks of the Wabash far away; or New York New York, the city that never sleeps; or the left coast where birides sing and everything; or Swanee, where you’d give the world to be among the folks in D-I-X-I-E, or Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains. Add to the mix New Mexico, for which no iconic lyric has yet been penned. It's home to a gelding named Mine That Bird.

But America is more than a home. It’s a romance that causes men and women, young and old, to sigh with joy that men in ten-gallon Stetsons, ladies in sleeveless crinoline and flouncy caps of their own and horseflesh as beautiful as a spring day exult in two minutes of glory as mud flies onto the silks of the jockeys. Anyone who didn’t tear up his losing ticket without a care and take a sip of his mint julep is to be pitied. As someone said, everything, including life, is too short not to partake. Needless to say, my pie-in-the-sky Exacta box of Dunkirk and Flying Private lies in shreds. I picked the wrong strong horse and the wrong long shot.

Mine That Bird, trundled to Churchill Downs in a trailer by his lame trainer, Bennie Woolley, a no-nonsense son of a gun with a broken ankle, sunglasses and no necktie, somehow slipped through a narrow opening at the rail in the home stretch and exploded when he and jockey Calvin Borel saw no equine haunches in front of them.

The sporting life has been bountiful today. Yankees at 1:00 pm, Mets at 4:00, Derby at 6:30, Bulls-Celtics at 8:00 (listening on the radio as I write, but will get to the TV shortly), not to mention a scintillating girls’ softball game at 9 this morning in Prospect Park to start things off.

The economic calendar next week is filled as well. Expect better news, culminating with the jobs report on Friday. The past week offered support for those who root for underdogs. The economic future may be a 50-1 shot, but improvements in the University of Michigan consumer confidence and purchasing managers’ surveys tell me that Miss Market sees daylight on the rail. Her nostrils are flaring.