Kentucky Derby 2026 Results

 Golden Tempo has won the 152nd Kentucky Derby.  Jose Ortiz is the jockey.  It is his first Derby win.   This race is historic, for the  first woman trainer has won the Kentucky Derby.   Her name is Cherie DeVaux.   She is the second woman to win a Triple Crown race.   Renegade was second, with Jose's brother Irad aboard.   2:02.27 was the time.  The Phipps family owns this son of Curlin.   The Phipps family has been in the sport for decades.  Actually, a century.  They were the family at least half responsible for Secretariat, thanks to having owned Bold Ruler, the sire of Secretariat and the greatest sire of all time as far as I am concerned.  They owned Discovery, Bold Ruler, Easy Goer, Personal Ensign, Buckpasser, and other greats too numerous to mention.

So much of what women in this game as jockeys and as trainers have to do deal with is connections. The Phipps family is about as good as it gets in horse racing.  If women can't form connections with owners and/or trainers, they won't get far in this sport.  There is still a lot of prejudice out there. 

As for Golden Tempo, he came from behind, actually dead last,  to win the race by a neck.  Ocelli was third.  

Great White had to be scratched at the last minute for rearing and going over backwards, throwing his jockey.  There was a delay in the running as a result.  Both horse and jockey seemed okay.

Jose Ortiz also won the Kentucky Oaks yesterday.

The race:

Kentucky Derby Day 2026

 Earlier:  Here is the current odds.  There were many scratches this year with the result of no clear favorite.  Renegade and Commandment are the favorites going into this year's race at 5-1, the 65th I have seen since I was six years old in 1961 and watched Carry Back.

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Earlier in the day:

American Turf Stakes:

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Churchill Downs Stakes, which had a stunning surprise:

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From yesterday, the Kentucky Oaks:

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Old Bourbon Turf Classic:

Some Thursday Reads

 Obit:  Country singer/songwriter David Allan Coe, 86, has died, his wife announced.

He was best known for the hit, "Take This Job and Shove It."

Snip:

He did concert tours with Willie Nelson, Kid Rock, Neil Young and others. He wrote “Take This Job and Shove It,” a hit by Johnny Paycheck in 1977, and “Would You Lay With Me (in a Field of Stone),” a hit by Tanya Tucker in 1974. He was also the first country singer to record “Tennessee Whiskey,” penned by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, that has since become a genre standard and hits for George Jones and Chris Stapleton.

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It has always been about the grift with these antifeminist hypocrites.

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Obit I missed from a month ago:  Chip Taylor, 86,  musician and songwriter best remembered for his song, "Wild Thing," which were notably recorded by both the Troggs and by Jimi Hendrix, passed away in late March of cancer.  His real name was James Voight, and he was the brother of the actor, Jon Voight.

Snip:

He was born James Wesley Voight in Yonkers, New York, the son of Elmer and his wife, Barbara, a teacher and swimming instructor. He had two older brothers, Barry Voight, later an eminent geologist, and the future Hollywood star Jon Voight. Chip would become uncle to Jon’s children, Angelina Jolie and James Haven, who both pursued acting careers.

He described how “we were brought up to think there was nothing we couldn’t do,” and recalled how he felt inspired to pursue music when his parents took him to see the Hollywood musical My Wild Irish Rose when he was about seven. “I was just mesmerised by the music,” he remembered. “I felt, that night, that something changed in me.” He began soaking up blues and country music from the radio, and briefly tried playing the violin before switching to ukulele, “which later would make it easier for me to learn guitar”.

Some Wednesday Reads

 Leave it to some antiabortion nutjob to lecture "the left" on what they should think and what they should say.

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USSC's right-wing hacks continue to fuck over voters.

The high court has had over 25 years of experience fucking over voters.

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Let's hope Idaho voters will vote for sanity and reject what these religious nutjobs are doing to their state.

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At the School Today

 A baby mourning dove and some sparrows are living at a local school near the office:

Monday Night on the Obituary Pages

Evangelist Marilyn Hickey, 94, a fixture on many religious talk shows as well as her own program and ministry, died Saturday.

Snip:

Born July 1, 1931, Hickey devoted more than six decades to preaching the Gospel, founding Marilyn Hickey Ministries with a vision to “cover the earth with the Word.” Her ministry spanned continents through television broadcasts, large-scale evangelistic meetings and teaching resources that emphasized salvation and divine healing.

Hickey’s international ministries included outreach to Islamic-majority nations. In 2016, she held a historic healing meeting in Karachi, Pakistan, that drew more than 1 million attendees, according to her ministry.

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 Nedra Talley Ross, the last surviving member of the 1960s girl group The Ronettes, has died at the age of 80.  With her cousins Ronnie Spector and Estelle Bennett, she formed the popular group in 1957, when they were literally kids.  Ronnie of course had been married to Phil Spector later on, and it wasn't a happy setup.  Nedra was married to Scott Ross, who was a fixture on Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network.  He had a background in music as well. They were married from 1967 until his death in 2023.  He was 83 or 84.  You can read his CBN obit here.

Hollywood Reporter:

Talley, who was born on Jan. 27, 1946, formed the girl group with her cousins — lead singer Veronica Bennett (who later was known as Ronnie Spector) and her older sister Estelle Bennett — with whom she’d been singing since they were in their teens. First known as the Darling Sisters, they signed with Colpix Records in 1961.

Two years later, the auditioned for Phil Spector, known for his big brass-and-drum style, which was called the “wall of sound.” He signed them to his Philles Records, which was when they changed their name to the Ronettes. After being signed, they sang backup for other acts. until Spector had the group record “Be My Baby” and “Baby, I Love You.”

What the Hell?

 Adam Mockler and the so-called Trump assassination attempt tonight:

Friday Reads

 Obit:  Singer/musician Alan Osmond, the oldest of the singing Osmond Family, died April 20.  He had battled multiple sclerosis for some 40 years.

Snip:

Alan Osmond was the oldest member of The Osmonds, a world-famous family of musicians from Utah. He lived with Multiple Sclerosis for four decades, which forced him to retire from performing.

Alan Osmond is survived by his wife, Suzanne, eight children, 30 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. He is also survived by his sister Marie and his brothers, Virl, Tom, Merrill, Jay, Donny, and Jimmy.

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The  animals got their revenge.

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Wednesday Night on the Obit Page

 Musician Dave Mason, 79, a founding member of the UK group Traffic, died Sunday.  He had been in ill health for some time.

Snip:

Mason began his career with Traffic, giving the psychedelic band their biggest British hit with “Hole in My Shoe.” He left the band shortly after the single climbed to Number Two in 1967, an early indication of the wanderlust that became his signature. Over the course of his career, Mason played on sessions by the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and George Harrison, playing alongside Eric Clapton on a tour with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, and even spending time in Fleetwood Mac in the early 1990s. He’d later joke that “I’m kind of the Forrest Gump of rock,” a declaration he made to USA Today while promoting his 2024 memoir, Only You Know and I Know.  

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Democratic congressman David Scott, 80, has died.    He is the fifth member of the House, four Democrats and one Republican, to have died this year.

Snip:

“In more than two decades in Congress, Congressman David Scott served the people of Georgia’s 13th District with unwavering dedication and honor,” Clark said in a statement Wednesday. “He leaves behind a legacy woven into the very fabric of our community, our state, and our nation.”

Scott spent 20 years as a Georgia state senator before his election to the House in 2002, rising to a senior post on the chamber’s Financial Services committee along with his role on agriculture.

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French actress Nathalie Baye, 77, has died.  She was known for her versatility in the parts she played over the  decades.

Snip:

It was not just the quantity of her roles but the quality of her performances that earned her accolades. Baye won four César awards, the French equivalent of an Oscar, two of them for best actress. Three of them, for Every Man for Himself (1980), Strange Affair (1981) and La Balance (1982), were won in successive years.

Her big break came when Truffaut cast her first in his 1973 comedy La Nuit Américaine (Day for Night), then five years later as the lead role opposite himself in the historical drama La Chambre Verte (The Green Room, 1978) based on Henry James’s short story The Altar of the Dead, first published in his collection Terminations in 1895.

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