…..or does it???
The weather outside is frightful.
With Rodney and Laura
Zenyatta and her trusty groom, Mario Espinosa
Los Angeles’ most famous equine resident, Zenyatta, is hanging up her hooves and retiring, moving to (literally) greener pastures. Last week, the six year-old mare kissed the squalor of Inglewood behind and was taken by private jet to her retirement home – the luxurious Lane’s End Farm in Kentucky – where she’ll get to loll around and eat oats and peppermints and raise baby Zenyattas. I was at Hollywood Park for “Zenyatta Appreciation Day”, where 11,000+ fans bid farewell to the mare so famous she’s been featured on 60 Minutes and on Oprah Magazine’s 2010 Power List: 20 women and one amazing horse”. The chilly, drizzly day didn’t deter her fans from coming out to honor the “Queen”, whose spectacular career and quirky character endeared her to horse fans everywhere.
Zenyatta took her final jog and gallop on Hollywood Park’s backstretch training track in the morning. Then after the day’s sixth race, she was paraded through the saddling paddock by her trusty groom, Mario Espinosa, who looked alternately puffed up with pride and devastated. Also on hand were owners Jerry and Ann Moss, trainer John Shirreffs, and her super hot jockey, Mike Smith, who signed autographs for fans and lunatics in the paddock between races (actually having to keep changing from his day’s racing silks into his more recognizable, official Zenyatta silks). The fans – many of them female and wearing Zennie’s unflattering colors, pink and aqua – lined the paddock and the winner’s circle to bid farewell to the humongous (17.2 hand) mare.
Peter, me and the worst knock-off Brian Griffin costume this side of Wildwood.
“It’s A Trap”! DVD release party, Hollywood
Growing up in Philadelphia in the 1970s, the post-Phillies-let-down/holiday season began at 5AM Thanksgiving morning whether you liked it or not. We would snowpants-up and trudge down to the Gimbels Thanksgiving Day Parade. Bringing up the rear of the parade was Santa Claus, protected by beleaguered postal workers who all us kids would bum rush with our stupid letters.
From the parade route, Santa would move to Ninth and Market to climb a firetruck ladder to the top floor of Gimbels, marking his official arrival as Department Store Santa. My family would a take a day to go to “Center City” (or “Into Town”), to “See Santa Claus” at Wanamakers, and check out the displays at the other department stores. My cousin – who went to the Gimbel’s Santa said theirs was the real Santa – rather than the one we saw at Wanamakers – as we all had seen him at the parade with our own eyes.
