Santa Anita Morning

Today was the presentation of the first Secretariat Vox Populi Award given to Zenyatta's owners.  Not surprisingly, the promise of getting Penny Chenery's autograph beat out spending the morning working at the old house.  I got up and headed over to Santa Anita Racetrack this morning, beating my friends Erin and Kay by more than half an hour, even though I got off the freeway at the wrong exit.  I got there before the gates opened, so I spent the time in line, talking to a nice man who gave me a ticket for free admission to the park.

When the gates finally opened, I headed over to the line for purchasing the poster of Secretariat and Zenyatta.  I was well ahead of where Kay, Erin, and Erin's sister Maureen were able to join it.  We decided that one of them could come and join me without too much trouble, but three would be a problem.  Kay came up to me and I greeted her with "so you found the restroom?"  Nobody made any objections, so I had someone to talk to for the hour we had to wait.

Eventually, Penny Chenery and Team Zenyatta arrived to applause.  The line weaved around the barriers and I was lucky enough to get a few good photographs.  I'm glad I decided to use the SLR rather than the point and shoot.

Zenyatta's owner Jerry Moss, jockey Mike Smith, and trainer John Shirreffs.

 Scretariat's owner, Penny Chenery, with Zenyatta owner Ann Moss.  Note Ann's "Z" pin.

 Jockey Mike Smith signing the lithograph portrait of Zenyatta.

Penny Chenery got out of a golf cart and walked to the signing tent.  Someone said "isn't that great that she's walking." I said "she's 87 or 88, she isn't dead."  When I saw the movie Secretariat, I pointed her out to Len in the Belmont Stakes shot.  I have no idea how I knew what she would look like almost 40 years after I saw her in the winner's circle on TV, but there was no mistaking her.

 Dottie Shirreffs writes the entries for Zenyatta's on-line diary, which I enjoy reading. 

 The very beautiful Ann Moss.

 

 Jerry Moss.

Kay watches John Shirreffs autograph the poster of Secretariat and Zenyatta.

Kay picks up her posters. We were lucky to be able to buy two each, so Erin and Maureen could have copies. They were in position to be able to buy them, but the autographing would have ended before they got to the tent.

I decided not to stay until the sixth race for the actual ceremony, figuring I'll be able to catch it on line somewhere and have a better view of it that way.  But I had to stop at the gift store before I left--Santa Anita has a great gift shop.

I noticed copies of Secretariat's Meadow and then I realized someone was signing books--Penny Chenery's daughter Kate.  I was suddenly very happy that I hadn't ordered the book from Amazon.

Kate Chenery Tweedy signed my copy of Secretariat's Meadow.  She described herself to another customer as "I'm Penny's rebellious hippie daughter Kate."  It must be funny to think of yourself as immortalized that way on film, but she definitely had a sense of humor about it.  Another customer pulled out a photograph of his horse--a descendant of Big Red.  Kate said they're encouraging people to send photographs of Secretariat's progeny for a website.  That will be worth checking out.

I also picked up a tee-shirt like the ones that the gift store staff were wearing:

I like the reverse as well:

Secretariat and Zenyatta are definitely racing royalty.  Watching them run is something I will never forget.  My poster is now ready for hanging.

Flashback to the 60s

In 1964, you were either a Beatles fan or a Dave Clark Five fan. By fan, I mean fanatic, and that pretty well describes teenagers anyway. I don't even own a DC5 single, let alone album.

For anyone lacking knowledge of that terminology, they were round flat discs with a continuous groove. A single was about 7" across, had one song on each side, and a hole about silver dollar (I'm not getting into that) sized in the middle which required an adapter to play on a turn-table (a device on which you placed the disc so it could spin and permit a needle to drag in the groove at a particular speed--45 rpm for a single or 33 1/3 rpm for an album--which created vibrations which resulted in sound. An album was 12" across, had a 1/4" hole that fit on the turn-table spindle, and contained approximately 6 songs or tracks on a side for about 40-45 minutes of total entertainment for the princely sum of $3.00. For mono. Stereo cost more. This technology was replaced by cds which are soon to be replaced by electronic distribution and I-Pod type devices. Later on, there may be direct jacking into the brain if Bill Gibson is right. (I of course, can hear "Glad All Over" in my brain right now, thank you very much. It's called "memory.")

Since I was a die-hard Beatles fan, the Dave Clark Five don't enter my thoughts much. KRTH will sometimes play a song--I heard one during the "First Hits Weekend" last Saturday, in fact. I was discussing them not long ago with my friend Andy Zax, who explained to me that Dave Clark has not permitted his catalog to be released. Somehow, he managed to keep control of the rights. To which I say, good for him but bad for him too.

Hence, I was left with a chill this morning when the news reported the death of Mike Smith, the lead singer and cute guy on keyboards for the DC 5, two weeks shy of the band's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The news report made it sound like he died of pneumonia because of a car accident four years ago, which didn't sound quite right or complete. It wasn't. He had a spinal injury because of a fall four years ago and had been paralyzed below the rib-cage since. Although there had been benefits to raise money for his medical expenses, the whole thing had run under my radar while Sir Paul's marital problems are front page news.

I'm a big fan of hits compilations, so I hope that Dave Clark decides to let someone distribute their recordings. I would definitely spring for such a release. Many of them were co-written by Mike Smith. It's been a long time since the fan-only rivalry between the Beatles and the DC5 was the most important conflict in my life. Rest in peace, Michael George Smith.