Practice, practice, practice......

"We do refer to them as footballs ... in this case it literally was a football," Marlan said. 






It began Sunday morning on June 15 2014 when Christen Deon-Sterling Moore, 22, tossed a football into the air.  He was caught when his throw fell very short of it's intended target.  It seems that Christen was trying to toss a football over the fences at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility......... a special football stuffed with "gifts."

Christen appeared before Judge Joseph Filip in Jackson MI to face three charges, two charges of providing contraband to a prisoner in prison and one count of providing a cellphone to a prisoner.  The football he had tried to toss over the fences was filled with marijuana, suspected heroin, three cellphones and chargers.  What is worse is that Christen's throw fell far too short.  It landed between the double fences that surround the facility.

Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan stated that it is not common for objects to be thrown over the fences at this facility because you have to drive into the driveway to gain access.  He further states that it is much more common at facilities that are close to city streets and roads.  Marlan said that objects that have been stuffed inside or taped in other items are usually called "footballs" but in the case involving Christen....... it literally was a football.

Judge Filip set a cash/surety bond for Christen of $50,000 and his next court date was scheduled for June 30.

I can only imagine that Christen wishes that he had done a lot more practicing before he decided to toss that football.



http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2014/06/detroit_man_accused_of_throwin.html#incart_river_default

Save your pity and toss the book at her........

I read the blogs citing the injustice of arresting a mother who only was trying to find a ride for her son visit his grandparents.  For a moment, I mentally jumped on that bus........... until I bothered to read the facts of the case.  

Sheila Sherrie Joyner of Marietta GA was arrested and charged with contributing with the delinquency of a minor after she tried to arrange a ride for her 9 year old son to visit his grandparents in Macon GA.  She wasn't arrested for trying to arrange a shared ride for her son....... she was arrested for the method she chose to pursue his ride.

For whatever reason Sheila had, she wasn't going to drive her son the approximately 100 miles to his grandparents home in Macon.  There have been many who state that it is unfair that a 9 year old could not ride the train or bus by himself, so she was really left with no other choice than finding a ride for him.  Sheila went to Craigslist for that ride and contacted a Georgia man who had posted that he was looking to share his drive to Sarasota FL.

This still may not raise many questions about whether this was really a good choice for her son.  The driver was the person to contact police about the ride share.  It seems that Sheila never made any attempt to meet the man, spoke only in texts to him and knew him only as "Eric" with no last name.  I am not sure that I would have contacted the police but maybe Eric should be viewed more as a good Samaritan than the bad guy.  He knows whatever had caused him to call the police.... maybe he feared a rip-off, a set-up for abduction charges or molesting.  Whatever his reasons, Sheila ended up texting with a police officer to finalize the ride for her son.

It wasn't even Sheila who showed up at the Racetrac gas station on Delk Rd with her son.  She had her babysitter bring the boy to set off for Macon and Sheila had told her that Eric was a friend who had offered to take her boy south.  Police arrested Sheila shortly afterwards at her apartment and charged her with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Her bail was set at $1,000 but she remained in jail on Tuesday......... it seems that she had a little matter to clear up, such as failing to appear on a different criminal case.

Evidently Sheila decided that it would have been too difficult to have her son and someone like her babysitter, take the bus from Atlanta to Macon.  That choice would have involved a 20 mile drive to Atlanta and the cost, one way for an adult and child of $28.00 if she bought it the same day online or the standard ticket, same day of $47.25.  The drive itself from Marietta to Macon is approximately 100 miles and would take about 1 1/2 hours one way, so I think paying a friend to drive the three of them round trip would still have been an affordable and safe option.

The driver known as Eric should be commended for his concern and protection of the child.  Sheila could have arranged for a ride with anyone else, possibly someone who could have done harm to her son or just vanished with him.  She knew nothing about this man and probably would have known as little about anyone else she arranged a ride for.  Instead of having her son safe, which is where he is because  of Eric's actions, we could be listening to Sheila's pleas for her sons safe return...... from someone she never met or knew more than his first name.  I doubt that she asked her babysitter to even write down a license plate number, description of the car or description of the man Eric........... remember, she told her that Eric was a friend of hers.

Before we all rush to blitz the web with the unfairness of Sheila's arrest and award her the "Mother of the Year" award, we should take a serious look at how much danger she really did place her 9 year old son in and the poor choices she made.  Besides, if you did want to give her an award.......... she probably would send her babysitter to pick it up.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/mom-allegedly-tried-sending-child-macon-through-cr/ngMpD/

http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2014/06/mom-uses-craigslist-to-get-son-a-ride-but-gets-arrested-instead.html

We aren't in Kansas anymore Toto........

"It seemed like forever, but I guess it was only a couple minutes, and it was coming down on top of us," Hauf told CNN's "New Day. "But the coolers held together wonderfully."

In the small town of Pilger NE, Becky Hauf had always heard the there would never be a tornado because the town was too close to the Elkhorn River.  Instead, on June 16 2014, twin tornadoes destroyed about 3/4 of the 350 residents homes and businesses.  I think that most of us have watched the local news stories about tornadoes with a passing interest but Monday night's coverage from a storm tracking team had many glued to the screen.  They were following a rare occurrence of twin tornadoes of almost equal strength, moving parallel to each other, from 3 to 1 mile apart at times.

There are many types of tornadoes such as : the traditional single tornado that forms and then breaks apart, a single tornado that forms, breaks apart and then reforms further away, satellite tornadoes that have a single large tornado but spins off smaller tornadoes that move away in opposite directions and multi-vortex tornadoes that create numerous small tornadoes within the center of a much larger tornado.  Monday night's tornadoes were rare because they were two separate tornadoes created from the same large supercell and were entirely independent of each other.  Neither one of the two tornadoes was affecting or feeding off the other, which is why they could travel in the same direction and so close to each other.

It is not uncommon to see two tornadoes spawned by the same supercell and have them travel rogether but usually one had touched the ground first and is now breaking apart while the second is forming and trying to touchdown.  Both tornadoes on Monday night formed at about the same time and traveled together for more than 50 minutes through sparsely populated farmland.  Far more destructive through can be the multi-vortex tornadoes that have vortexes spinning inside and around the main vortex.  The last example of the destruction of one of these storms was on May 3 1999, when 74 tornadoes touched down in Kansas and Oklahoma in one day.

 Probably the most famous picture of twin tornadoes comes from Elkhart, Indiana during the Palm Sunday Tornado outbreak on April 11 1965.  It shows two tornadoes in close proximity of each other, both estimated to be F-4 in strength.  In 12 hours that day, six states and four dozen counties were hit by tornadoes.  The two tornadoes in the picture though are probably not the same as what hit Pilger NE on Monday but rather, they show a more common multi-vortex tornado with two very large funnels at the same time.  While they are different in origin though, they can be just as destructive.

  Becky Hauf had stated that she had heard the common thought that Pilger would never see a tornado and that is easy to understand if you live in an area such as New England.  Most people don't believe that they will ever see tornadoes like they experience in the areas known as tornado alley.  New England is not immune to tornadoes as history has shown.  On Oct 4 1979, an F-4 tornado touched down in Poquonock CT and traveled north through Windsor Locks.  It was unusual because it was both late in the season to see a tornado anywhere and the tornado headed due north, not the usual direction of travel for storms like that.  When it was over, homes had been destroyed, an American Airlines plane had manged to spot the storm and divert his landing at Bradley Airport and over 30 vintage planes had been destroyed or damaged at the Bradley Air Museum as well as most of the state's National Guard helicopters.  It was surprising that there were only 3 people killed by a storm that large in an area that really has no real preparedness for tornadoes.

On June 1 2011, brought a day with multiple tornadoes touching down in central and western MA, leaving 4 dead.  One F-3 tornado left a 39 mile long path of destruction in a state that sees an average of  two tornadoes a year, while the other 5 tornadoes that had been confirmed were F-1 and F-0 in strength.  It was reported that there was more than $150 million in damages but the toll in lives and property could have been much higher if the largest tornado had directly hit the city of Springfield.

I hope that the information gained by chasing the twin tornadoes that occurred in Pilger NE this week will further the knowledge that scientists are accumulating about these dangerous storms,  It has been stated that the twins are too rare to predict but hopefully this information will help in predicting and warning residents of the threat that may be bearing down on them.

This is going to hurt our bottom line

"The harm to my client is $1.7 million," stated James E. Kelleher.








The advertisement for the house located at 1444 Ocean Rd, near the tip of Point Judith, RI would state that it is a three-story, 2,400 sq foot home that features wonderful views of Newport and Watch Hill from the rooftop cabana that has a Jacuzzi and wet bar........ sale price $1.8 million.  By the way, we just found out that it has been built entirely on public park lands, so there may be a bit of a problem.

The tale begins in 1984, when Robert C. Lamoureux purchased property on Ocean Rd and then in 1987, hired ERA Engineering to subdivide the property into two lots.  He then in 2009, conveyed the three acre lot that is 1444 Ocean to Four Twenty Corp, a company that Lamoureux owns and is in the business of purchasing, holding, developing and selling real estate.  He applied for and was granted the permits needed to begin work on the structure and the plans and survey had been prepared by Carrigan Engineering.

It was in 2011 that Four Twenty arranged for the sale of the house and property and everything seemed to be in order until the purchaser had their own survey done on the property.  That was when the proverbial shit hit the fan............. the survey revealed that the entire house, septic system and driveway had been built on the adjacent property.  The trustees for the Rose Nulman Park Foundation were notified that instead of a quiet free public park created to honor a family member, they had a huge house.

The Rose Nulman Park was created by Saul Nulman, a New York businessman who purchased property adjacent to the Point Judith Lighthouse in 1993 to set aside a quiet place, free to the public in honor of his mother.  When he died in 2006, the property was transferred to the foundation with the directive that it continue as a park or the Foundation would face a $1.5 million dollar penalty, payable to the New York Presbyterian Hospital.  Mr Lamoureux's home certainly qualifies as not keeping with the trust as well as legally trespassing on someone else's land.

At this point, the case hit the court calender with Lamoureux explaining that basically..... it is built, why not just let me trade properties with the foundation.  On the side of the foundation, there is the legality of a large fine as well as losing what they had purchased in the first place.  I guess that Lamoureux felt as though he should be allowed to legally rectify his stealing land because he didn't bother to verify that his house was actually going to be built on his land.

Mark W Freel, the lawyer for the Foundation stated that if the court were to force them to sell Lamoureux the property that the house sits on, it would be akin to "private eminent domain.  Lamoureux tried to express how shocked he was that the survey had not been done correctly but it is difficult to understand how an experienced developer in a highly sensitive location would have missed that.

Judge Gilbert V Indeglia ruled in favor of the Nulman Foundation and while he was sympathetic to the side of the developer...... he felt that a person's right to property should not be infringed upon.  Indeglia also inquired if there were approved plans for moving the house off of the property.  Lamoureux has apparently acquired most of the permits to move the house, septic field, driveway and construct a bridge over wetlands but the group Save the Bay has filed a lawsuit to prevent the move.  They state that they have evidence that the move will damage the surrounding wetlands and Money Pond.  There will be a date set for the house to be removed from the property and if it can't be physically moved, it will have to be demolished.

My guess is that Mr Lamoureux's gamble to get a nicer view is going to trash the company bottom line this year.  It is nice to see a judge rule in favor of the injured party and not bend over because of the expenses that will be lost.


*** Update July 1 2014:

This was discovered when a potential buyer had the home surveyed by a licensed surveyor of their own.  What has been revealed is that the builder submitted the building plans that were based on a site plan which had been prepared by an engineering firm.  There was no licensed surveyor involved in preparing that site plan but the building department accepted the plan believing that there had been one involved.  While many may try and blame a surveying failure........ it is difficult to fail if you were not even involved.  It sounds as though the builder failed and maybe they just thought that they could trade off the lot for the one they were supposed to build on.  As for the home............ definitely not what I would have chosen for a "look" in that location.

Blue box shows the actual house built and the property line for the lot that it should be sitting on to the left of what has been built.

A very different road now.........

“Never think that success is down to your own performance alone. If you start listening only to yourself you take the first step back towards the bottom. The flowers of victory belong in many vases.”  Michael Schumacher.





Michael Schumacher, 45, has been moved from the French hospital where he has been in a coma since December 29 2013, to the Luasanne University Hospital in Switzerland today to begin rehabilitation.  He has been in a coma after he suffered a severe head injury during a skiing accident over the holidays.  It has now been reported that he has come out of the coma that was medically induced and he is now ready to begin the long road towards recovery.

Schumacher had fallen while skiing with his son and hit a rock with his head.  Doctors have stated that he would have suffered much more damage to his head if he had not been wearing a helmet.  He had also been wearing a helmet camera that was filming during the accident but no information has been released as of yet as to what the film may show of the accident.  No detailed information has been released as to what exactly his condition is today or what type of rehabilitation will be needed for the former F1 champion.  His family wishes to thank all those have helped during his hospital care, the first aid people at the accident site and all those who have sent good wishes and again have asked that this next phase of his recovery to be kept from the public eye.

The doctors in Grenoble,  France had put Schumacher into a medically induced coma to reduce the swelling in his brain as well as performing surgery to remove blood clots.  The accident that had split his helmet left some blood clots that were too deeply placed in his brain to be reached with surgery.  There has been little information about his condition since the report in April that Schumacher was showing moments of consciousness and awakening.

Dr. Tipu Aziz, professor of neurosurgery at Oxford University's John Radcliffe Hospital has weighed in with his medical opinion of Schumacher's possible  condition.  Aziz states that if Schumacher is released from the hospital, it would mean that he is able to support his own bodily functions and breathing.  He follows that by stating that the fact that Schumacher is going to rehab could mean that he has long term side effects such as problems with speech, swallowing, brain function or weakness in his limbs from the loss of brain function.  





Michael Schumacher began his racing career karting and quickly moving up the ranks of racing.  He won the German Formula 3 Championship in 1990.  The next year, he was offered his first F1 drive for the Jordan team in the Belgian Grand Prix.  He failed to finish the race after he burnt out the clutch but he did impress enough people to be given a spot driving for the Benetton Team the rest of the 1991 season.  He continued to drive for them, winning the Belgian Grand Prix in 1992 and the world F1 championship for 1994 and 1995.  Schumacher then joined the Ferrari Team in 1996 where he and some of the Benetton technical crew that followed his move, set about transforming a team that hadn't won a championship since 1979, into one of the most successful teams ever.

He won his first F1 Championship in 2000 and followed that with four more championships through 2004.  In that year, he won the first 12 races and finished the season with 13 wins, a new record for a single season.  In 2005, the rules change to require that all the teams had to race with no tire changes.  Ferrari had used Bridgestone tires for years and lost their performance edge to Michelin running teams.  Schumacher won only one race that year, while Alonso drove away with the championship.  In 2006, Schumacher finished second to Alonso for the championship and he announced his retirement from racing.  He then spent his brief retirement racing motorbikes and acting as a track side consultant for the Ferrari team.

In 2010, Michael Schumacher was back on the track racing for the F1 Mercedes team at the age of 41.  In the three years that he drove for the Mercedes team, he only managed one third place finish which made him the oldest driver to manage a podium place in the sport.  At the end of the 2012 season, he announced that he was going to retire again and Hamilton replaced him as a driver for Mercedes.  Michael finished his career with numerous records including: 7 championships, 72 wins and 181 races with Ferrari, as well as being the only motorsport athlete to win the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year.  He won that award twice.

Michael Schumacher is not the only F1 driver to face horrific injuries and rehabilitation.  In 1976, Niki Lauda crashed his car during the German Grand Prix and was pulled from the burning wreck by four drivers and race marshall.  He suffered from broken bones, burns to his wrists and head damaged lungs from inhaling toxic fumes in the fire.  At that time, his condition was so grave that the hospital did not believe that he would survive and he was given last rites.  Lauda was back on the track six weeks later to finish fourth in the Italian Grand Prix even though he still had blood seeping from his bandages.  The doctors felt that he had recovered through his own strong will.  He walked away from racing in 1979 and started Lauda Air but in 1982, he returned to racing and continued to race through the 1985 season.  He then retired a final time.

Alex Zanardi began his racing career at age 13 in kart racing and moved up to the Italian Forumla 3 series in 1988 and then the F300 series in 1991.  It was after this season the Zanardi moved up to occasional drives in Formula 1.  1995 found Zanardi in the US and driving in the Champ Car series after he lost his driving seat in F1.  In 1998, Zanardi managed to sign another three year contract to drive in F1 after having been very popular in the Champ series but by 2001, he was back driving in the CART series.  While he was attempting to return to the track during a pitstop near the end of the race at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz in September of 2001, Zanardi collided with another racer and had the nose of his car and both of his legs torn off.  It was a miracle that he had even survived the trip to the hospital after the traumatic injury and the loss of almost 3/4 of his blood volume.  Zanardi went through extensive rehab and returned to racing in a specialy fitted touring car.  In 2007, Zanardi placed 4th in the handcycle division of the New York Marathon and won a gold medal at the 2012 Paralympics  in London.

It is great news that Michael Schumacher has finally left the hospital after his accident and with the success that other drivers have shown in overcoming the odds............ Michael may well win on this road as well.

Update Oct 5 2014:

It had been reported earlier that Michael's wife had done extensive renovations to their home on the shore of Lake Geneva.  He was transferred to their home at the beginning of September and has a specially trained medical staff caring for him.

His wife Corrina states that he is slowly recovering and has not left his side in the months following the accident.  At the time of his transfer to rehab, it was reported that he was unable to move or speak.  He was communicating with with his eyes to others though.  It had been feared that he may have remained in permanent vegetative state following the accident but that does not seem to be the case anymore.

Corrina was spotted at the World Equestrian Games that were held in France and seemed to be enjoying herself.  She had been named the Ambassador for the games the month earlier.  That would indicate that not only is he slowly recovering but that she is also comfortable with the care he is receiving at home.  The fact that he was able to be moved from rehab to homes care after less than three months would also indicate that he is continuing to improve.  

A recent report seems to contradict the earlier one about massive changes to the home to accommodate Michael in their home.  I am sure that there have been some changes there but they may not have been on a massive scale.  It will be very long road to recovery but I am sure that his fighting spirit will help him continue along that path.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/michael-schumacher-update-wife-corinna-reports-slow-but-steady-recovery-126043/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29130742

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2192288-michael-schumacher-recovery-updates-on-former-f1-stars-rehab-after-ski-crash

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/5537759/Schumacher-family-turning-home-into-10m-medical-clinic.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/michael-schumacher-ski-accident-corrina-3298035

Update Oct 13 2014:

Michael Schumacher's 15 year old son Mick has stated that his father is slowly waking up since he has been moved to the family home for care.  He spent six months in a medically induced coma and now that he has left a rehab hospital, he is very slowly waking which seems that he is not being pressured to improve but is being allowed to advance at whatever pace can be managed.

It has also been reported that it was not the hit on his head that caused the most damage but it was the mounting of the go pro camera that caused the severe injury.  The injury to his brain has been described as catastrophic but he is still fighting to improve.  He is being cared for by a group of 15 experts and he remains immobile and unable to speak at this time.  It has also been reported that his father Rolf will be moving into specially built quarters on the grounds of their family home.

Michael's son has been kart racing and had been racing using his mother's surname of Betsch but he has adopted Mick Jr this year while racing.  He placed second again in the German Junior Kart Championships and was runner up at the World Championship in France this year.  He stated that he is only starting his racing career and plans to continue racing 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2789258/michael-schumacher-waking-slowly-coma-reveals-teenage-son.html

Buried in history and paperwork.......

"We thought the world was going to end," said Virginia Hudson.  The 82 year old resident of Eureka NC was talking about the January 24, 1961, a B-52 bomber that crashed near Big Daddy's Rd in Faro NC.

For years there has been a quiet rumor about that plane crash.......... that there were nuclear bombs aboard the plane.  The recent release of several documents including a report by the Sandia National Laboratory titled "Multi- Megaton Bomb was virtually 'Armed' when it crashed to earth in North Carolina" and published by the National Security Archive have shed light on the persistent rumor.  The truth is that there were two nuclear bombs aboard the plane and while local residents and the nation have had evidence that they existed, they were not informed as to how close they were to detonating during that accident.

The residents had been very used to having large aircraft fly overhead since they are close to Seymour Johnson Air Force base, where this and many other military planes flew out of.  The B-52 was part of Operation Coverallairbone, a Cold War plan to have aircraft in the air at all times.  In this way, not all of the US aircraft could be caught on the ground during an attack and they would be able to immediately head for targets in China, Russia and Soviet bloc countries.

This B-52 suffered a "failure of the right wing" according to the report, which I suppose is an official sounding way of stating that the wing came apart.  It was during the spin of the plane that the two nuclear bombs came loose from the plane and began the fuzing process........... in other words, they had begun the arming process.  The two MK 39 nuclear bombs hit the ground separately and very fortunately did not detonate.  According to the report, weapon one had the safety pin yanked during the plane's breakup but the Arm/Safe switch remained in the Safe position as it parachuted intact to the ground.  The second weapon did not deploy a parachute and free-fell to the ground but with it's own arming problems.  The Arm/Safe switch on that bomb did remain in the Safe location but the impact with the ground rotated the switch drum to the Arm position and damaged the switch contacts.  It could not have detonated with that damage but it sounds a bit like someone caught a very lucky break or two.

Another document that was released discusses two other B-52/nuclear bomb crashes, one in Palomares Spain in 1966 and Thule Greenland in 1968.  The crash in Spain involved a US plane and refueling tanker crashing in mid-air, which caused three of the nuclear bombs to explode and scattered plutonium contamination as well as having divers search in the Mediterranean for another bomb.  The crash in Thule happened on the ice covered bay near the Thule airbase and resulted in four bombs exploding to scatter radioactive debris.  The report from James Miller, US Department of the State, had originally been heavily redacted on it's initial release but it has been released again with much of the redacted information available.

The two MK 39 nuclear bombs that were aboard the NC B-52 weighed 10,000 each and would have yielded 3.8 megatons for explosive force.  In comparison, the bombs that the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki yielded 0.01 and 0.02 megatons.  The bomb in Hiroshima destroyed about five square miles of the city and killed 140,000 people.  Three days later, the larger bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing 80,000 people and destroyed 2.6 square miles of the city.  The explosion in Nagasaki was contained by its location between several mountains.  If either of the bombs that landed in NC had exploded, the lack of a large, industrial population would possibly led to a lower death toll but the devastation to the surrounding area could have been terrible.

Almost immediately after the crash, the government told the press and the local residents that there nothing to fear............couldn't possibly have exploded, were unarmed and posed no threat of radiation.  They did purchase an easement around the site to prevent digging and they claim that they do test the area water for contamination, which hasn't been found.  What also hasn't been found is a good 50-60 lb chunk of the bomb which may be the reason they don't want any digging in the area.  The second bomb had disintegrated on impact and the government did find the radioactive materials and remove them from the crash site.  After a few weeks of digging though, they gave up fighting the water levels in the hole and filled the three acre, 40 foot deep hole.  It is estimated that the rest of the bomb may be 180 feet deep in the ground.

In 2012, a historical marker was erected in Eureka to mark the event's location.  It simply states "Nuclear Mishap" and does not list the names of Major Eugene Shelton, Major Eugene Holcombe Richards and Sergeant Francis Roger Barnish, who lost their lives in the B-52 crash  I am glad that each year, more of the truth is revealed about historical events but until now, I don't think many of us could have imagined how close we as a nation came to our own nuclear disaster.

"By the slightest margin of chance, literally the failure of two wires to cross, a nuclear explosion was averted," Secretary of Defense Robert McNamera.

We should just make Mt Everest shorter...........

"This is the coward's way out," Coburn said. "If you can't get the points to run in the Kentucky Derby, then you [shouldn't be allowed] to run in the other two races. It's all or nothing. It's all or nothing. This is the coward's way out, in my opinion."

Steve Coburn, California Chrome's minority owner did apologize for that comment on Monday but there have been many others who have taken up his cause since the words left his lips after his horse's defeat in the Belmont Stakes.  Christine Brennan, a USA Today sports columnist has agreed that the system should be changed to only allow horses that have run in the first two jewels of the Triple Crown to duke it out in their own exhaustion.......... that would show us fans which horse can crawl home first and claim the trophy.  The Triple Crown is an event that does not guarantee a winner every year like many other sports but it is unfair of her to state that the current format is akin to a baseball team showing up in the last game of the World Series to win the award.  The correct comparison would be more like a basketball coach holding out his better players on the bench to put them in at the end to beat the tired opponents.

California Chrome is a very good horse who I believe will continue to race well in the future.  He is not a great horse that deserved to win the Triple Crown or should have had the rules changed for him because "we haven't had a winner in so long.'  Only 11 horses have won the Triple Crown in the 131 years that it has existed which comes out to an average of one winner every 12 years.  In comparison, the English Triple Crown has existed for 151 years and has only had 15 winners, the last one was Nijinsky in 1970.  It seems that many opt out of the last race because of the distance and an interest in having speed horses vs distance.

In comparison to Secretariat, Chrome's times do not put him in the realm of greatness.  Big Red's time for the Kentucky Derby was 1:59 2/5 while Chrome loped in at 2:03.66.  The Preakness times were Red at 1:55 and Chrome at 1:54 which compare well for sprinting, though the actual time for Red's Preakness has been debated on it's accuracy.  Finally, Secretariat crushed the Belmont field by 31 lengths and a time of 2:24 and this year's winning time for the Belmont was 2:28.52 which Chrome was a few lengths off of.  When attempting to cry foul, Coburn needs to take into account history and the fact that there was a horse that ran in all three Triple Crown races, managed to break two speed records and did not win the trophy.  Sham was unfortunate enough to be born the same year as Secretariat and was viewed as the next Triple Crown winner until Big Red got rolling on the track.  His owner Sigmund Summer never cried that he had been robbed because his horse was born in the wrong year.

California Chrome has become the 12th horse in the past 36 years to have won the first two races and then lose the Belmont.  I don't think they were all robbed by a coward, though many have put forth various reasons as to why their horse came up short in the last race.  In the early 80's. trainer Woody Stephens won 5 straight Belmont Stakes, a record untouched to this day.  He started in 1982 with Conquistador Ceilo who had sat out the first two races because of a leg injury.  In 1983, Caveat won after skipping the Preakness and then retired because of an injury.  Swale won the Belmont for him in 1984 and had run in all three races only to die 8 days after the Belmont victory.  In 1985, he brought to the track Creme Fraiche, a gelding, who some may have cried foul for since there is no stud farm for him.  Woody's fifth straight win came with Danzig Connection in 1986, a horse that had missed the first two races.  No one has been able to equal Woody's 5 straight wins and to try and claim that he didn't play bt some imaginary rules is to sneer at his accomplishment......... training a horse five years in a row that will win on that track at 1 1/2 miles.

What of the usurper of Chrome's believed crown?  Steve Coburn didn't name names but he sure sounded as though his comments about a coward winning seem to be pointed at Tonalist and his owner Robert Evans.  The accusation that Tonalist was a "fresh" horse slipped in to spoil the chances of California chrome are entirely false.  He wasn't a fresh horse......... he was a Little League player stepping into the World Series.  Before the Belmont, Tonalist had only run in 4 races; 2 MSWs, an allowance and the G2 Peter Pan with the longest distance he ran was 1 1/8 miles, less than even the Preakness.  He was aimed for the Derby but developed a throat infection that kept him from racing and qualifying for the Derby.  Robert Evans was much more understanding of Coburn's emotions since he had been exactly in that same place in 1981 when his father's horse Pleasant Colony started poorly and then ended up with too little, too late.  The fact that Evan's believed that his horse had more than a chance to overcome the distance, the crowd noise and inexperience speaks volumes for his horse.  A coward would have left a horse like that in the barn and sought easier company and a shorter distance to win a race.

California Chrome was well on the way to becoming the people's horse with his rags to riches story....... his owners bred their $8,000 slow poke of a mare to a $1,500 bargain of a stud to produce a very good racehorse.  This doesn't entitle them to all the winning races they feel they should have.  It means that they have a very good horse to race against other very good horses.

That brings us to the statement that only horses running in all three races should be allowed into the Belmont.  It has never been a rule and never should become one either.  While it would be great to have more Triple Crown winners, lower the standards to a race of tired horses and a chance to see which one could drag it's ass home first would not be much fun.  In fact, it would be almost as much fun as watching bulldozers race on a NASCAR track.  The clamor for change is echoed by the fans who drop in every year when there is a contender for the trophy but most people in the racing industry do not want the tradition touched.  One concession that seems logical is to extended a week between the Derby and the Preakness.  Oddly, no one is terribly upset that no one has ever won golf's Grand Slam of the US Open, Masters, British Open and PGA Championship or that no man has won the 4 Grand Slam events in tennis since 1969.  I haven't heard that it should be made easier by being open only to players that have entered all the events.

Seriously........... would anyone suggest that we dynamite the top of Mt Everest to make it a lot lower?  Heck, that would guarantee that a lot more people would be able to make it to the top.

Wait........... isn't that part of the thrill and challenge?  Being able to complete something that is not often done?