Weep No More, My Lady

Louisianan Mr. Bo-rail rode the name of an extinct Park Slope, Brooklyn, drug store to victory in the 136th edition of the premier equine race in North America. Yes, Super Saver (the colt, not the drug store) hugged the rail and then split a couple of fellow thoroughbreds amid the mud and mint juleps to be adorned with roses.

He was in our trifecta box along with Ice Box. Boxes abound! Alas, Lookin at Lucky finished out of the money to render our ticket another relic of 2010 nostalgia, along with the bull market. Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve. As Dandy Don used to say on Monday nights, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a very merry Christmas. Got to hand it to Meredith. He knew how to use the subjunctive mood, which Cosell would have applauded when “speaking of sports.” We loved those radio spots.

And if we hadn’t broken our Cardinal rule (pun intended) of going against Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia club today we would be in the money despite the plunging Dow Jones Industrial Average, which forgot to beware of Greeks bearing debt (forget about the gifts). Granted, there may have been someone pushing a button that he thought was a million and turned out to be a billion, but times being what they are, he took the job and took the market away down south in Dixie.

Still, there’s more going on than an errant ring finger on a keyboard. There are too many languages in the old world. You travel 100 miles and you’re in a different land. If you can speak a bit of Spanish, you’re OK in the new world, which awaits the jobs report tomorrow morning. This may be China’s century, but the USA still has a few licks left in her. Expect gains in payrolls but not enough to nick the unemployment rate

We’re betting against the euro and still believe that investors should hold Ford, buy Hovnanian Enterprises (a home builder; ticker HOV) and never go against Halladay.

We can’t say it better than this:

“France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter--it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart.”
(F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Swimmers”)