chill-axin

You know how after the party it's the after party and after the after party it's the hotel lobby?

Well for me it goes, Big Event, after the big event, no event.

I'm at the no event stage right now, and it's rather nice. Don't get me wrong, I love the hullabaloo surrounding the Triple Crown events, but it's nice to have a calm before each storm, and the upcoming Preakness Stakes could deliver gail force winds if Kentucky Oaks winner Rachel Alexandra shows up to face Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird along with the rest of the Derby's 278,502-to-1 superfecta: runner-up Pioneerof the Nile, third-place Musket Man, and fourth-place Papa Clem. The last time the Derby superfecta all returned in the Preakness was 1993, which coincidentally was the last year that the same jockey won the Oaks and Derby in the same year. Retired Racing Hall of Fame jockey-turned-analyst Jerry Bailey did it then, and Calvin Borel did it now.

Borel, who will be on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on May 12, has committed to riding Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness if new owner Jess Jackson supplements her to the race and she gets in. If that scenario occurs, then it would mark the first time since 1996—when Bailey did not ride an injured Grindstone—that a Derby-winning jockey did not ride the Derby winner in the Preakness. Bailey rode Derby third-place finisher Prince of Thieves to a seventh-place finish in that year's Preakness.

I leave for Baltimore on Monday, and I'm looking forward to delivering a lot of dynamic content throughout the week, but for now I'm content to blog while looking up stats and listening to the new Thermals album.