(This is the time of year when the horse racing season for the Ivory Pine Syndicate is winding down, but the soccer season for the Rosevelt Soccer Club is gearing up. Here's a 90-day glimpse of the day in the life of a horse racing managing partner and soccer club administrator.)
Awoke, 4:13a
It was opening weekend at First Tracks Cumberland's winter meet, and our 6-year-old pacer Sixby Hanover (middle photo) was entered in his twenty-second race of 2024. We didn't like Sixby's post position (generally speaking, there's a pretty strong track bias against outside starters), but we've liked Sixby's performances the last couple weeks in Bangor. So the hope heading into the race was that we'd at least finish in the top five, which would result in a purse check.
Before heading to the track in Cumberland, I drove to Holy Donut in Scarborough to pick up a couple dozen donuts for our partners and our pacers' caretakers to celebrate opening weekend. And since I was just a couple minutes away from the site of the former Scarborough Downs, I drove over to see what the former track looked like after it had been closed in November 2020.
I have many fond memories attending races at Scarborough Downs as a kid, as a young dad, and as aspiring owner. The facility was pretty dilapidated in its latter years, but it still had charm and looking back the on-track fan experience was better than the experience we've had in southern Maine since it closed about four years ago.
The renovated track in Cumberland has been serving its purpose as a placeholder to ensure the continuity of harness racing in Maine, but we can't wait for the new track in southern Maine that's been talked about for the last four years to be built.
Visited Norton Farm, 1:30p-2p
Sixby Hanover paced well again this week, and he finished a solid third in his race. It's good to be back at our home track after Sixby's been traveling the fair circuit and up to Bangor since July. And one of the perks of racing within ten minutes of his home barn is that he was back in a pasture at historic Norton Farm within an hour of completing his race down the road.
And one of the perks of being an owner at our home track is we can stop in at Norton Farm to also visit our partnership's second pacer Crimson Pine, who was also enjoying the cooler weather in a field at the stable.
Researched state and local candidates for 2024 election, 5p-5:30p
It's obviously been pretty tough to not be aware of the day-to-day goings-on of this year's presidential election, and southern Maine's two U.S. Senate and U.S. House races are shaping up to be predictable yawners.
But I wasn't completely confident in my familiarity with candidates running for Maine Senate, Maine House, town council, and school board. This week will likely be really busy, so I figured this afternoon will be probably be the best time between now and Tuesday to become familiar with those races.
Even after thirty minutes of Internet sleuthing, I don't feel like I have much familiarity with all the candidates who'll be on my state and local ballots.
Looking back, I'm even more proud of the old local and state politics coverage I had on a former blog (see here and here), mostly because the media coverage for local and state races on my ballot this year is paper thin.
Maine Soccer Association, 9:15p-9:30p
One of the organizational habits I try to uphold is to provide a draft of meeting minutes to Board of Directors within a week of a meeting. The Maine Soccer Association recently co-hosted the inaugural meeting of the Maine Soccer Hall of Fame's Board of Directors, so these meeting minutes are unusually poignant.
The next step is now to incorporate the Maine Soccer Hall of Fame as a non-profit organization and submit our paperwork to the State of Maine. And we're now one step closer to developing a project that unifies the numerous silos that exist in Maine soccer, while preserving Maine soccer history and ensuring the many stakeholders who've worked so hard to make Maine soccer what it is today get the recognition they deserve.
Asleep, 11:03p
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