It sounds awfully familiar, the news that the New York Racing Association is trying to arrange a rich stakes race at Belmont Park this fall using a corporate sponsor to boost the purse and featuring the two best horses in training.
Sports Columns
Acting UNLV President Neal Smatresk, a selfless, intelligent, determined, logical sort of guy, will use all of those traits to search for a new athletic director now that Mike Hamrick is returning to the same position at Marshall, his alma mater.
There was a time when you had to travel as far north as Canada to hunt a wolf, but that changed Monday when the Idaho Game & Fish Commission established a harvest limit for the state’s first public wolf hunting season. That season is scheduled this fall and is open to nonresident hunters.
They had a news conference at Planet Hollywood on Tuesday to film an upcoming episode of “Shaq VS,” the new program in which NBA center Shaquille O’Neal spends his offseason challenging other professional athletes in their own sports. The opposition in this specific challenge is Oscar De La Hoya. It was announced beforehand that De La Hoya is “semi-retired,” meaning whoever wrote that line didn’t see the guy’s last fight. There is nothing semi about it, if he wants to live a long, healthy life. News conference is too strong a description for what occurred Tuesday. Far too official. It was more circus without elephants but plenty of clowns.
ELY — Kurt Nantkes. Yep, that long ago.
Fear is being replaced by hope for the recovery of sophomore Rebel linebacker Bryce Saldi following a skateboarding accident.
If you’ve ever wondered what it is about horse racing that keeps us coming back for more, just look to the Iraqi people. A fascinating Los Angeles Times story on the Baghdad Equestrian Club depicts how horse racing in Iraq has rebounded from near extinction and is thriving.
What was once the Desert Lake Shooting Club in Boulder City is about to be saved from extinction and given a new name. In June, Desert Lake members were notified the facility would close by the end of the month. The reason was never given, only a vague allusion to an unsuccessful lease negotiation.
Take the negative stereotypes you have heard or read or witnessed about a college athlete, put them in a coffee grinder and turn it on. UNLV Rebel Rodelin Anthony doesn’t fit any, right down to the classical music he meditates to minutes before kickoff.
I suppose if they really were going for a reference that would honor the vast history of Las Vegas, the local United Football League team could have settled on the nickname Nomads.
Gary Shaw is certain of it. He thinks boxing still has it over mixed martial arts in one specific way. He has no doubt that when a megafight occurs, when a Manny Pacquiao steps into a ring and faces a Ricky Hatton, when so many movie stars show up that Denzel Washington is relegated to the 15th row, when the lights are blinding and the buzz deafening, the advantage still falls to boxing.
You still see it in movies. How boxing once was. How it truly mattered to all those watching. How the action inside the ring was thought far more exciting than whatever celebrity might be attending outside it.
The Arlington Million has not lost its shine as one of the prime stakes races. The racing festival built around the Million helps puts the spotlight on Arlington Park, one of the most fan-friendly, best-run racetracks in the country.
The sun was just lightening the eastern horizon as we made our way out of Boulder Harbor and Mike O’Donnell pointed his pontoon boat toward the northern tip of Saddle Island. That wasn’t our destination, but it was a good waypoint along our route to Government Wash. With the water so low, Mike could easily see the whitewashed rocks against the dark water as he guided the boat around the point.
See. This is what sport needs more of, and I’m not talking about some golf fan playing a flatulence machine along a fairway to make it sound as if Tiger Woods cut a big one while waiting to hit a shot over the weekend.