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Lance, Inc. Too Big To Fail

By Diane M. Grassi

Shortly after 5:00 PM on the Friday prior to Super Bowl XLVI, U.S. Attorney, Andre Brigotte, Jr., of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, quietly issued a three sentence press release.

And the federal investigation against Lance Armstrong had been terminated without an indictment being filed against him.

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Cricket World Cup: Luke Wright may be England’s best choice

Disappointment may come before England in the dictionary, but at World Cups, they seem to be side-by-side. Regardless the sport, England are expected to fail to reach expectations. For Pete’s sake, even in darts, a sport where England routinely have every highly-ranked player not named Raymond van Barneveld, England crashed out to minnows Spain at last year’s inaugural World Cup.

And crash out they will in cricket if they cannot overcome a resurgent West Indies XI in the finest form they’ve been in some years.

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From Belmont to Breeders’ Cup

Insert cliché. Does it really matter which one I use?

Horse racing is at a crossroads…

Horse racing is hoping that any publicity is good publicity…

Horse racing is down to its final strike…

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Horse Racing Needs Big Brown vs. Curlin More Than Ever

Some things disappear. Vanish. Just go away.

Sure, there are reasons, explanations, scapegoats, but the simple fact is that things disappear.

Unfortunately, down that same path more things might disappear.

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Oak Tree to Unretire Seven of the Greatest Jockeys of All-Time- and Julie Krone

Something here is not right.

Like the kids game, which of these is not like the other: Cordero, Vasquez, Hawley, Day McCarron, Bailey, Stevens, Krone.

Krone? Julie Krone? Amidst a list like that?

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Pimlico Race Course as Good as Closed

This might as well be the end. This might as well be a funeral.

For the past two decades, every horse racing news out of Maryland was one of contraction. Whether it was the end of the Pimlico Special, the fabled stakes race that once pitted Seabiscuit versus War Admiral in a march race, or purse cuts or requests not to have race dates at Pimlico, it has been a near-constant struggle.

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A Masshole Degenerate Gambler in King Arthur’s Court… er- Reno

By Ryan McGowan

Perhaps it was when I had to ask the guys from the Mine Rescue Simulation team how the hell you simulate a mine in a hotel casino.  It could have been when the cab driver asked me if I wanted to tag along with his next customer out to the Bunny Ranch.  But in hindsight, I think the moment I realized that Massholes don’t belong in Reno was when I was walking down North Virginia Street and realized I was out of place because I was actually wearing a shirt.

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25 Greatest American Thoroughbreds: Part 1 of 6

Eleven. Currently, that’s the most important number in American horse racing. There have been eleven Triple Crown winners spread out over 59 years.

However, since the dawn of television, which for arguments sake was 1952, there have only been three horses that could claim all three legs.

For any American who could not get to Louisville, Ky., Baltimore, or Elmont, N.Y., the first time he or she saw a champion horse was in 1952 when CBS affiliate WHAS covered the Kentucky Derby and the signal was broadcast across the country. Hill Gail won the race as the favorite, but an injury kept him out of the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. He never won another major stakes in his career.

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Unheeded Words: Washington’s Final Thunder

Washington might not be a horse racing hotbed, but the small community in the Pacific Northwest has always loved its champions.

None, financially speaking, was as prolific as Saratoga Passage, who passed away unceremoniously Saturday of colic at the age of 23.

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American Horse Racing’s Biggest Gamble

There will be a lot of gambling done on Belmont Stakes Day: millions of dollars will be won and lost at tracks all across the country. But the biggest gamble will be taken by the sport itself. Barely a month after the death of Eight Belles, racing will go all-in, betting on the injured hoof of Big Brown and hoping for the big score every bettor wishes for.

The satisfaction of that score has already diminished; Big Brown’s story is not as heartwarming as local legend Smarty Jones’s, nor is his trainer a big ol’ teddy bear you can root for. There are no Frances Genters to accept the trophy if he wins; Big Brown is owned by what is basically a hedge fund of investors. And then there is the issue of his sore feet; the quarter-crack he currently has may not be a big deal to his connections, nor to his doctors, but it is a news story that scares the bejeezus out of most of the folks that will tune in to ABC on Saturday.

What if he breaks down?