Tom Barnes's Blog: Tom's 'RocktheTower' Blog - Posts Tagged "triangle"

Mine that Bird and the Belmont

It was announced over the weekend that Rachel Alexandra will not run in the Belmont Stakes this Saturday and thus will deny the match up most people had hoped for. Not to worry though, there will be a race on Saturday and Mine that Bird winner of the Kentucky Derby and second in the Preakness will be out to make a statement.
However, we’ll first have to get past the flap his jockey Borel caused with an over confident remark, ‘We’re going to win it, no questions asked,’ has piqued the pride of some horsemen and I suspect tactics born out of that irritation will show up on the racetrack Saturday afternoon.
That remark notwithstanding Borel has only ridden in seven races over the Belmont course winning just once.
Clair Novak interviewed Borel and they talked about his statement and some of the remarks regarding tactics to deny him a win. In her remarks after the interview she concluded that …’a confident reinsman is saying "bring it on."
"They're going to do their best, yes, you're supposed to, that's what it's about, but I don't have to be (on the rail)," he said.
And, at the end of the day — win, lose, or draw — all riders will just be doing their jobs.
"It's a horse race," Borel said. "I've been there, done that. And they've gotta ride their horse. But they're not going to stop me from wining."

The story of Mine that Bird reminds me of another small sized horse from an earlier generation. Seabiscuit was his name and he didn’t win all of his races either, but he won the hearts of Americans.

My review
Seabiscuit: The Little Horse With a Big Heart.

In her story of Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand has opened a unique window into the world of horse racing. The main characters are a quiet horse trainer named Tom Smith, the flamboyant horse owner Charles Howard, a horse named Seabiscuit and jockey’s Red Pollard and George Wolfe.
The owner and trainer first hooked up at the Aqua Caliente Race Track in Mexico. Smith and Howard were as opposite as night and day, but they made accommodations for each other’s differences and their relationship flourished. Once Smith worked the stable’s horses into racing condition they moved the operation north to Santa Anita and into Barn #38.
Their first season together was successful and near the end of the Santa Anita season Howard decided to move his stable to a small track in Michigan called the Detroit Fairgrounds. Smith was sent farther east to look for some mature horses to augment their juvenile stable. On June 29th at Boston’s Suffolk Downs a horse stopped in front of Tom Smith and for a long moment the two eyed one another. Fate? The horse continued in the post parade, but Seabiscuit had gotten Smith’s attention. It wasn’t his build, he had a rectangular body with short legs, but Smith looked at the program and saw that the horse was a descendent of the great Man O’ War and was sired by Hard Tack. Seabiscuit reflected none of the beauty and breadth of his forebears, but carried all the nasty, mean and unruly traits of the others.
Tom Smith wanted that horse and Charles Howard made arrangements. Seabiscuit was taken to the Howard barn, but the former owners had worn the horse out. Seabiscuit was exhausted from a hard racing campaign. The horse was only three years old and had already run as many races as most horses would accumulate in a full career. What Tom Smith wanted was time to rest the horse, and give himself a chance to figure out the horses problems and how best to deal with them. Seabiscuit had been abused by a number of jockey’s and it would take some time to turn the horse’s attitude around.
In November of 1936 Howard’s stable of horses were in the San Francisco Bay area of California, the idea was to enter Seabiscuit in the Santa Anita handicap on February 27th of the next year.
Tom Smith had finally found a way to settle the horse down and got Seabiscuit interested in what he was born to do – run. They ran him in two prep races at Bay Meadows and won them both. Red Pollard was aboard in both wins. Then it was on to Southern California for two more prep races prior to the Santa Anita Handicap.
The big cap was run before 60, 000 raucous and cheering race fans. Pollard rode a perfect race weaving his way through the field and got the lead in the stretch – but the jockey let the horse relax around the eighth pole. No one knows for sure, but chances are due to Pollard’s right blind eye he probably didn’t see Rosemont flying down the middle of the track. Seabiscuit was overtaken and couldn’t regain the momentum to win. He lost in a photo finish but won the hearts of Americans all over the depression-plagued land. There was something about that little horse that gave hope to millions who had little more than hope to cling to during those hard times.
Hillenbrand has fashioned a great horse story and readers will come away with knowledge that they could have only learned from a legend.

Writers Notebook:
Another marketing source for writers is Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s ‘The Frugal Book Promoter.’
My review.
After wading through half a dozen cut and paste marketing books, I found it refreshing to read Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s down to earth approach to book promotion. The Frugal Book Promoter is the real deal, easy to read and easy to apply.
In her PR Primer she says, “Don’t publicize your book; instead “brand” yourself.”
In other words don’t be a one-pony show, after all you might write another book or invent something you’d like to promote.
Frugal is filled with easy to understand marketing tips along with how to use postcards, get book reviews and Media interviews. There’s also a chapter on E-Books.

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com

This Week
Let's go to the Movies: Hollywod Scandals
Writers Notebook: Christmas Time

Hollywood Silents 1914-1929 (Part 10)

During the early 20's two headline grabbing scandals hit the Hollywood film community and they were both major and tragic. In September of 1921 Fatty Arbuckle was accused of rape and in February 1922 popular film director William Desmond Taylor was murdered in his apartment.
The Arbuckle case was a tragedy on two levels, a young actress Virginia Rappe died several day after attending an Arbuckle party. The second tragedy was the lie that doomed Fatty Arbuckle's film career.
Arbuckle and two of his pals, actor Lowell Sherman and cameraman Fred Fischbach threw a party for some of their friends at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. One of the guests, an aspiring actress, Virginia Rappe drank too much during the evening and became seriously ill. The hotel doctor was called and he concluded her symptoms were mostly caused by intoxication and gave her morphine to calm her.
Ms. Rappe was not hospitalized until two days after the incident. The morning following the party a rumor was started, by Maude Delmont, that Arbuckle had raped her friend. And even after Ms. Rappe's own physician found no evidence of rape Maud Delmont continued the lie by telling the police and others that Fatty Arbuckle had raped her friend.
One day after Virginia Rappe was admitted to the hospital she died of peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder.
Following her death bold headlines continued the lie that misled the whole country into believing that Fatty Arbuckle was a rapist and a monster.
Gossip columns printed stories that he had used ice to evoke sex while others indicated that a coke or champagne bottle had been used on the victim. There were no facts, but the gossip and rumors made titillating stories for their readers.
Arbuckle endured three manslaughter trials and was eventually acquitted by a jury and given a written apology. But the big lie had done so much damage that even when the truth came out – Arbuckle's career was finished. The scandal had taken its tole and he never got back to his work or won the praise for what he had done as a pioneer comedian in Hollywood motion pictures.

William Desmond Taylor directed more than fifty films and was at one time the president of The Motion Picture Directors Association. He directed some of the great stars of the era including Mary Pickford, Wallace Reid, Dustin Farnum and Mary Miles Minter.
At 7:30 am on the morning of February 2, 1922 the body of William Desmond Taylor was found inside his bungalow at the Alvarado Court Apartments in the Westlake Park area of Los Angeles. The forty nine year old film director had been shot in the back. An exact motive for the killing was never established although there was a sizable amount of cash known to be missing from his apartment.
During the course of the investigation sex became part of the story and more than a dozen individuals were eventually named as suspects. Newspaper reports at the time were sensational, speculative and sometimes fabricated in order to add intrigue to the murder.
Since the case was never solved, many of the stories in true crime fiction through the years have managed to keep the William Desmond Taylor murder case and the Hollywood scandal alive.

But even during those high profile scandals Hollywood managed to produce some memorable films.
Blood and Sand a Paramount Film with Rudolph Valentino.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a Universal Film, with Lon Chaney. That was one of the most memorable films of the silent era because "The Man of a Thousand Faces," Lon Chaney gave one of the most powerful performances of his career.


The Prisoner of Zenda a Metro Film with Lewis Stone and Alice Terry.

And Cecil B. DeMille's first really big film, The Ten Commandments, for Paramount Pictures with Theodore Roberts, Estelle Taylor and Richard Dix.
The film won high approval from Variety.
'The opening Biblical scenes of the Ten Commandments are irresistible in their assembly, breadth, color and direction; they are enormous and just as attractive. Cecil B. DeMille puts in a thrill with the opening of the Red Sea for Moses to pass through with the children of Israel...' And the review continues to praise the film.
(To Be Continued)

Writers Notebook:

Christmas Time:
Twas the Night Before Christmas, and I’m Dreaming of, Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, Sleigh Bells Ring, Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Do You Hear What I Hear, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, Hark The Herald Angels Sing, Joy To The World, A Child is Born, and it’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, and Jolly Old Saint Nick, more rapid than eagles his coursers they came; and he whistled and shouted and called them by name; ‘Now, Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!’ and I heard him exclaim er he drove out of sight, “Happy Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight.”


How Did the Wise Men Know?
By
Lenora Smalley
I pondered the manger on the mantle
porcelain figures poured in flowing lines,
Mary, face encased in a blue draped shawl
reaches out to the baby in the crèche,
shepherd, cape turned back in haste
holds a lamb across his chest,
Joseph lifting a lamp leans forward
to get a  closer peek , surrounded
by cattle- oxen, donkey and sheep,
--and three wise men, so reverent
in purple, ermine-trimmed traveling robes
bring gifts of myrrh, frankincense and gold.
How did the wise men know?
How did they know which star to follow?
How did they know which road to take?
In those days gold was the gift given to a King,
frankincense was meant for One called divine.
And myrrh? Myrrh was used for wounds and pain.
How did they know which gifts to bring?

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

Www.tombarnes39.com

www.RocktheTower.com

http://thehurricanehunter.blogspot.com