Two-time Horse of the Year Curlin produced his very first foal last week, a filly. The Bloodhorse Magazine was invited by the breeders to take pictures of the proud papa and his first daughter, and the filly is beautiful. Click here for the slideshow.
Treme to debut April 11
I consider David Simon’s, “The Wire” to be the finest 60 episodes of television in American television history. The richness of the characters and the overarching message of, “The Wire” is unmatched, in my opinion, in the annals of modern television. So excuse my excitement to learn that Simon’s next series, “Treme”, finally has a premiere date on HBO: April 11, 2010. ”Treme” tells the story of post-Katrina New Orleans, and is reported to have a smaller, more intimate scope than, “The Wire”. A very brief trailer for “Treme” is found here.
I Bought Another Race Horse
This evening my trainer and I claimed Wirebuster, a 5 year-old gelding sired by Housebuster. Housebuster (by Mt. Livermore) was the Eclipse Award winning Sprint Horse of the Year in both 1990 and 1991. Housebuster only had 42 offspring, and Wirebuster was one of the last before Housebuster died in May 2005 at age 18. Wirebuster’s mom is Shenandoah Snow, herself a daughter of the greatest race horse North America has ever seen, Secretariat. Shenandoah’s Snow’s children are not accomplished at the racetrack, going a combined 25 for 144. But she’s never been bred to a stallion as good as Housebuster, and Wirebuster has flashed talent while stuck in William Turner Jr’s 7% barn in NY. Wirebuster now resides in a 20% trainer’s barn here in West Virginia, and I am excited about his future under my ownership!
Review: Slumdog Millionaire
“Slumdog Millionaire” tells the story of Jamal Malik, a poor Muslim living in Mumbai who wins 20 million rupees (about USD425,000) on the Indian version of, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” That’s the basic framework for the storytelling that happens over the next two hours. The story has all the basic story elements: love, family, loyalty, betrayal, highs and lows.
I waited too long to watch, “Slumdog Millionaire”, I think. I probably would have enjoyed it more had it not come packaged with hype, a Best Picture Oscar, and had I known less about the story. On the positive side, I loved the storytelling device. I also loved the art direction. I thought the Indian actors did an excellent job, and I commend Danny Boyle on putting this movie together. I was never bored, and I never quite knew what was coming next. I came away from the film thinking how depressing it must be to live as a poor person in Mumbai, and thanking God that I was born into a middle class American family.
Elizabeth Moon to Release a 4th Paksenarrion Book
This afternoon I was perusing a message board I frequent, and happened upon a post by someone asking for book recommendations. She had just finished Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, The Wheel of Time series, and had read some Dean Koontz books. I recommended “The Deed of Paksenarrion”, the marketed name for a three book series of high fantasy books written by Elizabeth Moon in the late 1980s. It’s one of the few series that lives up to J.R.R. Tolkein’s legacy, and it’s probably the only one that stars a female character. It’s truly excellent stuff. I enjoyed it (and have re-read it a few times over the years), my dad really enjoyed it, and plenty of people at work have read it on my recommendation.
So I happened to click through to the Amazon link I published in my recommendation, and by chance, noticed a book called, “Oath of Fealty” by the author. I hadn’t heard of it, so I clicked on it, and lo and behold, it’s a 4th book in the Paksenarrion series – a continuance of the story as it was finished 20 years ago. I, of course, immediately pre-ordered it. But now I’m wondering … is it better to let a finished, well-received, “older” series of books and just “be”, or is it better to continue to develop the story many years after-the-fact. I guess for this case, it’s a results-oriented thing. If she conceives the next story very well, the story will be well received and “worth it”. If she doesn’t do a good job, then we’ll bemoan her ever going back to the well. But trying not think in a results-oriented fashion, I think I’m on the side of “let sleeping dogs lie”.
