The 135th Preakness Stakes

MoonHowler
Super Saver
Super Saver

The 135th Preakness Stakes will run today in Catonsville, Maryland, right outside of Baltimore at Pimlico Race Track. The length of the course is 1 3/16 miles. This will be the second leg of the coveted Triple Crown. There has not been a Triple Crown Winner since Affirmed in 1978. The 70’s was good decade for Triple Crown winners. We also got Seattle Slew in 1977 and Secretariat in 1973.

Calvin Borel will ride Super Saver, winner of the Kentucky Derby 2 weeks ago. This time Borel will not be trading horses like he did last year. Major contenders right now seem to be Lookin at Lucky who had some difficulty at the Kentucky Derby as well as other races. He has a new jockey for this race. Paddy O’Prado will also run. He finished third in the Derby.  The official flower of the Preakness Stakes in the Maryland State Flower, the Black Eyed Susan.

 blackeyed Susan

Calvin Borel, the Cajun jockey, is quite a character. He is also the only jockey to win 2 legs of the Triple Crown on different mounts. In 2009,he won the Kentucky Derby on Mine That Bird and the Preakness on Rachel Alexandra, a filly.

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West Wing Blog

MoonHowler

The West Wing Blog csan now be found at www.whitehouse.gov/blog

According to the Washington Post:

You didn’t see this on CNN or Fox News or NBC: President Obama awkwardly introducing Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, to the Netherlands’ prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, at the recent nuclear security summit. “You know, uh, you’ve met Jan?” the president says tentatively as the other world leaders stand aside like shy kids at a dance.

Or this: Obama, playfully doing his best impression of Muhammad Ali, throwing mock punches into the midsection of a costumed Easter Bunny following the White House Easter Egg Roll.

You didn’t see it on the networks because the behind-the-scenes video was only available on “West Wing Week,” the Obama administration’s new video blog. The six- to seven-minute compilations, which appear each week on the White House’s Web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov) and on such video-sharing sites as YouTube, offer what a narrator on each segment calls “your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

The West Wing blog will show video not shown by the major cable networks or nightly news that gives a bird’s eye view of what’s really going on behind the scenes.

In this video, President Obama talks with Americans about why the Wall Street reform is important to anyone who has ever used a credit card, gotten a loan, bought a car or a house, uses an ATM, has a checking account, etc. He talks to ordinary Americans who just might not have a private political agenda: