Notes On the Back Of a Black-Eyed Susan

Is he kidding me with this? He has got to be kidding me. Twenty-four hours after riding three stakes races, which was twelve hours after riding in the Preakness, which was twelve hours after an eight-hour plane ride from France, not to mention the eight-hour plane ride BACK to France, Gary "I Am The Hardest-Workin' Man In White Pants" Stevens rode today. Three times. I mean, granted, he's still not winning ever since I accidentally jinxed him, but... this is supernatural, people. I was exhausted just watching him ride in ONE circle on Saturday.

-Ryan Fogelsonger? How YOU doin'? Holy CRABcakes, he's hot. Normally I'm not a sucker for dimples, but seriously: The dimples, the dimples! Ryan, join me for some purple passions after the race. The first gallon is for drinking; the rest is for pourin' over you, baby. Ain't no thang that you and WaterCannon came in last. All the better for me to watch your butt go by with an unobstructed view.

-Can I just say how much I love Chris McCarron? Oh, I can? Sweet. I LOVE CHRIS MCCARRON. In fact, he's not Chris McCarron: He's Ivy McCarron. He is Ivy McCarron, because he grows on me every single time I see him interviewed. Ivy is a Hall of Fame jockey who was the race designer for Seabiscuit, and is currently GM of Santa Anita. Readers of this space first met him here, in a thorough discussion of The World's Greatest Twenty Minutes of Television, Ever. Ivy sometimes leads visitors on group tours of Santa Anita. I must attend one of these before one of us dies. I MUST.

Ivy was interviewed on ESPN by some incredibly agonizing host team--one male, one female, both asshats-- and he was asked about his 1987 run for the Triple Crown with Alysheba. He mentioned looking over into the track kitchen from the jock's room to see his sisters dancing after his win. "They invented a dance called the Sheba Shuffle," he said, and then. He. DEMONSTRATED. The man lifted his arms up over his head and shook it like a Polaroid picture. It was AWESOME. Rock on, Ivy.

Ivy was seen again a few hours later on NBC, this time interviewed standing up and with one of those shot-from-below "I'M HUGE!" camera angles that attempted to make him look taller than he actually is-- but with jockeys, there's only so much you can do. He was almost a towering 5'6" in this shot. But, alas, no dancing.

I love Ivy.

-I'm the first to admit it: I may have been too hasty in passing judgement on Stewart Elliott. On Friday, Stuey stood before the press corps, arms folded, and straightforwardly answered every single question The Animal had for him about his girlfriend-smacking past. I was an alcoholic, he said. I was wrong, he said. I've changed, he said. Anybody else got any other questions? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller? Let me ride my race, then, please.

See, I'm not normally a fan of people with assualt convictions, but Stuey, he got help, he stood up in front of everybody, he took responsibility for it, and he moved on. I have a lot of respect for that. A lot. We've all got shit. I've got shit, you've got shit. Stuey has his rap sheet, I've got the seminarian I cheated on my then- boyfriend with. You've got-- well, we won't talk about the shit YOU'VE got. But most of us don't have to go through life with the whole entire WORLD finding out about our shit during the most stressful seven weeks of our lives. It's what one does AFTER the shit that matters; specifically, whether or not one is currently still engaged in the aforementioned shit. Stuey is done with his shit. Mr. Elliott, welcome back to my good graces. Enjoy the view of my rack.

Also, did you see him spin his whip in the homestretch after handing Smarty a couple of taps? It was completely unconscious, I think, just the a sort of "This is how I do it" type of thing he's probably developed over the past fourteen billion races he's run. Goddang, that was cool. I very nearly took all my clothes off right there in front of the television set.

-Speaking of, there was this great shot in the jock's room of Gary and Stewart sitting side by side on a table, waiting for the call to head over to the paddock. Helmets on, ready to roll. Not talkin'. Not lookin'. Just sittin'. Oh, AWKward. And the signal comes, and everybody starts heading for the door--except for Gary. He grabs his whip and hops off the table and heads in exactly the opposite direction as all the other jockeys. The camera, of course, follows Elliott, but I would have paid NBC one skillion dollars if they had taken off after Gary. I've got a pretty good idea of where he was headed, and I would have loved--LOVED-- to see Gary turn around, face the camera, and go, "Seriously. Everything? You have to know everything that goes on before the race?" as he heads into the Little Jockey's Room. (Same dif, I know.)