Secretariat, Piggott and Led Zeppelin
Secretariat, Piggott and Led Zeppelin
Video: Alcina Rawles Seeks First Stakes Win in Maryland Million Classic
TRF Celebrating 35th Anniversary Oct. 21 at Laurel Park
LAUREL, MD – Alcina Rawles, who has a small stable at the Fair Hill Training Center, will seek her first stakes win Saturday when she saddles Goodluckjonathan in the wide-open $150,000 Maryland Million Classic on Jim McKay Maryland Million Day at Laurel Park.
A 5-year-old son of Friesan Fire, Goodluckjonathan broke his maiden in July before finishing third Sept. 21 at a mile against allowance company. For Rawles, who gallops her own horses, a win would be big.
“It would be huge…I haven’t had any stakes horses,” she says. “It would really be big. To have the first stakes horse to have that win, that would be crazy.”
Host and analyst Acacia Courtney visited Rawles and Goodluckjonathan at Fair Hill.
“He’s great. He’s fresh. He’s happy,” Rawles of the gelding. “He’s kind of always a good-feeling horse, but he is the loveliest horse to gallop.”
Video: click here to watch.
Secretariat, Piggott and Led Zeppelin
There are hundreds of indelible images at Laurel Park.
Secretariat and Barbaro winning the Laurel Futurity. Lester Piggott’s three victories in the D.C. International. Ben’s Cat winning his third consecutive Maryland Million Turf Sprints. Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention singing “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama.”
Wait.
Led Zeppelin playing “You Shook Me.”
What?
James Brown singing “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
Building upon Maryland’s version of the Breeders’ Cup – the 33rd Jim McKay Maryland Million – Laurel will play host Saturday to the inaugural Clubhouse Festival, an entertainment experience that will introduce Thoroughbred racing to a new generation of fans with music by Grammy nominated Steve Aoki and a host of other top tier performers.
The Stronach Group, parent company of Laurel Park, has worked diligently to update racing with significant entertainment, events and exceptional dining. Clubhouse Festival will be the first at renovated Laurel Park, but it isn’t the first time the 107-year-old facility has hosted exceptional entertainment events.
In the late 1960s, Laurel played host to three Jazz Festivals featuring Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Etta Jones and Thelonious Monk among others. Attendance for each festival was estimated at approximately 25,000. Before the 1967 concert, workshops were organized by George Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival All-Stars and free admission was offered to thousands of Baltimore students.
In July of 1969, a month before Woodstock, Wein teamed up with concert promoter Elzie Street to produce the Laurel Pop Festival, a two-day music festival that has become known for an incredible and eclectic list of 12 performers who have all been inducted into music Hall of Fames across the world. Those performers included Led Zeppelin, Sly and the Family Stone, Buddy Guy, Al Kooper and the Jeff Beck Group featuring Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood.
The Friday, July 11 show kicked off with legendary blues guitarist and Kennedy Center Honoree Buddy Guy before Kooper performed. After releasing his first solo album I Stand Alone, which critic Bruce Eder described as a “dazzling, almost overpoweringly beautiful body of music.” Kooper, the Zelig of popular music, brought a 15-piece band to perform at Laurel just months before releasing his second album “You Never Know Who Your Friends Are.”
The Friday show continued with Jethro Tull and Johnny Winter before Led Zeppelin performed a set that included “Dazed and Confused,” “Communication Breakdown” and “What Is and What Should Never Be.”
The second night of the festival was delayed several times by rain. It was reported that it wasn’t until 10 p.m., that the Jeff Beck Group, featuring future Faces Stewart and Wood. Ten Years After, the Guess Who and Zappa and the Mothers followed before Sly and the Family Stone wrapped up the festival after 2 a.m.
The Washington Post’s review of the Pop Festival was written by Carl Bernstein, who wasn’t impressed, writing in part that the festival “provided some demoralizing insights into the state of rock music today and the people who are producing it.”
Bernstein would cover the Watergate scandal three years later with Bob Woodward.
TRF Celebrating 35th Anniversary Oct. 21 at Laurel Park
The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, the world’s oldest and largest Thoroughbred rescue organization, will be honored for 3 ½ decades of service with ‘Maryland Friends of the TRF Day at the Races’ Sunday, Oct. 21 at Laurel Park.
The special day honors the 35th anniversary of the national organization devoted to saving Thoroughbreds no longer able to complete at the racetrack from possible neglect, abuse and slaughter, and concludes a festive weekend highlighted by the 33rd Jim McKay Maryland Million program Saturday, Oct. 21.
A meet and greet at the TRF’s dining box seats will kick off the special day at 1 p.m., followed by refreshments and a private tour of Laurel’s historic paddock at 1:30. Participants will gather at 2:30 to watch the fourth race, named ‘Celebrating 35 Years of Sanctuary for Retired Racehorses,’ and join in a post-race winner’s circle photo opportunity.
Founded in 1983 and based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., home to historic Saratoga Race Course and the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, the TRF provides sanctuary to retired Thoroughbreds throughout their lifetime and rehabilitates and retains sound horses for second careers.
The TRF has garnered worldwide recognition for its innovative Second Chances program, which teaches equine care as a vocation to inmates at prisons in eight different states including Central Maryland Correctional Facility in Sykesville, located about 25 miles from legendary Pimlico Race Course.
The Maryland Second Chances program opened May 14, 2009 and in its first five years graduated 19 inmates from Sykesville’s Groom Elite program. The most recent ceremony took place Sept. 20 to bring the total number of graduates to 41.
Currently, the Maryland Second Chances program is home to six former racehorses: geldings Liang’s Dancer, 22; Quite Rightly, 20; Two Rivers, 18; Greek Ruler, 15; and Don’t Quit Dreaming, 7; along with 15-year-old mare Judge Luci.
For more information about the TRF or ‘Maryland Friends of the TRF Day at the Races,’ visit www.trfinc.org or call 518-226-0028.
