The Canadian Sportsman
Archive for September, 2009
September 30, 2009
“I make a point to focus on the horse, start reading the horse and get together with him and try to become one.”
— Ron Pierce on his Zen strategy for winning the Little Brown Jug, something the driver has now done four times thanks to Well Said’s victory on Sept. 24.
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September 30, 2009
My husband and I are dildos, or so I’ve been told.
It’s the latest in a series of clever acronyms used to describe one’s socioeconomic position. Remember yuppies? Well, that apparently wasn’t specific enough. Now we’ve got people who are DINKs (double income, no kids), OINKs (one income, no kids) or even SINBADs (single income, no boyfriend, absolutely desperate).
But we’re DILDOs — Double Income Little Dogs Only — and happily so. Our family is quite complete with little Briscoe and Ebert, two miniature wiener dogs, who have been part of our lives for the last nine years. However, with these 10-pound money traps, it’s a good thing that they are adorable and that there is double income in play.
Our smug friends with kids think we’ve taken the easy way out and simplified our lives by ‘just having dogs’, but I double-dare them to complain about the cost of diapers.
Our dogs have had so many weirdo afflictions and ailments that we have often joked that the P.A.S, or Puppies’ Aid Society, would soon be called in to investigate the home environment.
Ebert, our youngest, has had three surgeries at the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) in Guelph to repair slipped discs in his back — a not uncommon reality for many dachshunds due to their elongated spines.
Despite our best efforts to protect our delicate boy — my husband even hand-made ramps so there would be no jumping on or off the couches — Ebert’s back gave out on three different occasions, threatening paralysis. Like a trooper, he’s bounced back each time, saving himself the indignity of having to wheel himself around in one of those makeshift doggie carts.
He was the first-ever dog to take OVC’s brand new MRI machine for a test drive a few years back. You might be on a waiting list for two years to get your hip or knee scanned, but show up with the cash and your beloved weenie is zapped within the hour. He’s had two.
He also has a regular appointment with his doggie ophthalmologist (yes, that exists), who proclaimed him to be the first dachshund he’s ever seen with an eye condition previously only associated with shelties. The doctor was much more excited about making veterinary history than we were.
Did I mention that he was also poisoned by a dog-food manufacturing error? As luck would have it, both dogs eat the same food so it was not one, but two poisoned dogs in the household.
Aside from his poisoning, Briscoe, the more robust of the two, went spontaneously deaf last year, leading to his first MRI. He was subsequently diagnosed as not deaf, but rather ‘a little slow’. According to the Montreal-based veterinarian who gave us the news in broken English, “How do you say?... If he was a boy, he wouldn’t have gone very far in school.”
Alas, you do what you’ve got to do for your loved ones, whether you’re a dink, oink, dildo or, gasp, nuclear family.
As for the Sinbads, they stick with cats.
September 30, 2009
The best from our Post Parade Q & A feature
Past Posts
Favourite answers from past Post Parades
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Ron Pierce (above, Aug. 5, 2004):
What’s your fondest memory of racing in Macau?
“My most exciting experience was being in a typhoon. I’ve never seen it rain so hard in my life. You could see them coming from miles away from across the South China Sea. It looked like a waterfall coming at you. It was just unbelievable. It would stop as fast as it started and then get steamy and hot.”
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Chris Roberts (above, Jan. 22, 2009):
When was the last time you cried?
“As a dedicated Leafs fan, I cry a little every day.”
What are your favourite rejected names for Georgian Downs’ new $500,000
stakes race - the Upper Canada Cup?
“The Muskoka Mile. The Clash of the Great Lakes. The Sunrise Stakes. And, if you can believe it, Curtis MacDonald suggested ‘The Meadowlands Pace’ three times.”
What’s the worst job you ever had?
“Corn detasseling. It’s a sick right-of-passage ritual that kids from Dresden have to go through. Minimum wage... start at dawn... walk through sopping wet corn fields for 14 hours. Need I say more?”
Be honest. On a scale of 1 to 10, how jealous are you of Chuck Keeling’s hair?
“Between you and my female office staff, I’m getting a complex. Yes, yes, Chuck’s so dreamy. 10.”
Chuck Keeling (above, March 26, 2009):
Chris Roberts admitted he was jealous of your hair. Is there anything that makes you jealous of Chris?
“His perfectly aligned goatee, his sense of flair with fashion, his witty humour, his sexy car, the admiration women have for him. I guess, everything Chris represents.”
Tell me three things about yourself and one of them can’t be true.
“I love to wakeboard, listen to heavy metal and drink light beer.”
Besides you, of course, who is the world’s best “Chuck”?
“Chucky, the doll from the horror movie series. Gotta love a doll that wields a knife.”
The Commish
Everyone gets the “If you were the Commissioner of all of harness racing...” question. Here’s the best responses.
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Peter Heffering (above, March 31, 2005):
“Implement a North American license for owners. Secondly, amalgamate the USTA and Standardbred Canada. The industry is too small to have two bodies doing basically the same thing.”
Bill O’Donnell (April 15, 2004):
“Stop suspending trainers, drivers and owners and replace the suspensions with fines and I’d make them hurt. Then, I’d progress them. Money is what really sends a message, not days.”
Mark Ford (May 13, 2004):
“Clean up some of the bad eggs in the industry on both ends — on the backstretch and among the regulators.”
Handicapping Challenge
Post Parade subjects set the odds when asked the “chances the following will occur in the next 10 years”
One or more small Ontario tracks will close
Hugh Mitchell (Nov. 27, 2008) — ”50-1.”
Kelly Spencer (Jan. 5, 2009) — “10-1”
Chris Roberts (Jan. 22, 2009) — “1-9”
Anthony Haughan (March 5, 2009) — “2-1. I hope I’m wrong.”
Chuck Keeling (March 26, 2009) — “1-1”
Darryl MacArthur (April 16, 2009) — “1-1”
Lou Liebenau (May 14, 2009) — “20-1”
Hec Clouthier (Feb. 12, 2009) — “3-1”
Jack Darling (June 18, 2009) — “2-1”
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