Hey: long time, no see. What have you been up to?

I have a major headline. Wait, no, “good news” is insufficient. This is THE BEST news: Susan is pregnant and our daughter is due on 12/12/12.

HA CHA!

Mugs and I made our way up the Northway yesterday and, as I wrote on Twitter, the first song we heard was “Dixie Chicken,” by Little Feat. That’s gotta be a good omen, right? Sunny days and signers on their way? What I didn’t write on Twitter is that ten minutes later we heard “Round and Round,” by RATT, which might indicate we’re in for a meet of losing photos and choruses of Durkin saying, “They’re off the turf. . .” But I’m going to remain optimistic for now.

I headed over to Hattie’s last night to catch the first edition of Serling at Saratoga, a new, weekly one-hour radio show being broadcast by WTMM (104.5 FM). The show is hosted by (who else?) Andy Serling and last night’s episode featured special guests Nick Zito and Steven Crist. It’s a great idea for a show and it will be even better when they get the kinks worked out of the live presentation (the in-house sound at Hattie’s needs a little augmentation is all, but they’ll get there). It was excellent, get-you-in-the-mood-for-Saratoga stuff that led one observer to chimee in with the words you read in the headline above.

I’m going to attempt to blog daily this meet and I think I’ll succeed. I’m on a decent roll the last five years up here with bankroll plays (I did a blog for Horseplayer mag the two years before this blog started). In that time, we’ve had four winning seasons, with only a dirty nose in the 2008 Travers separating us from being five for five. For those of you are new, I tend to keep things light (I love writing in-depth analysis on occasion but it’s hard to find the time to do it up here). I’ll just write about what I’m up to, give a pick, and throw in some random mumbo jumbo as well. Come for the pick, stay for the random mumbo jumbo. Or something like that.

Anyway, thanks for checking me out and let’s talk again soon.

BANKROLL PLAY:

Race 1: $50 win and place on #6 SALTO

SALTO has European form that suggest he could easily beat the field in the meet’s curtain jerker. His first race in the country from last fall is an obvious toss if you watch the tape. He walked out of the gate and Peslier made a weird, wide, never-gonna-work-out type move. In the end, he was only beaten 5 in a race where the form is working out. Salto’s been with the Pletcher barn for a good long while now and I would be kinda shocked if we don’t get a ready for primetime performance here today.

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Oh, the other thing I like to do in this blog is link to songs that I like or are otherwise thematically appropriate (not sure where I got that from):