The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-07)

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SPORTS

SATURDAY, MAY 7 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS M2 D

BY CHUCK CULPEPPER IN GEORGETOWN, KY.

A

t this avant-garde farm, the old-

est living Kentucky Derby win-

ner, Silver Charm, 28, can gaze

across at Swain, 30, whom he

once dueled in Dubai, or look down the

road toward Touch Gold, 27, who

sneaked up and ruined Silver Charm’s

Triple Crown bid at the 1997 Belmont.

Summer Attraction, a 26-year-old geld-

ing, can frolic with 29-year-old gelding

Slamming some 22 years after they

served as the exacta one forgotten day at

the late Rockingham track in New

Hampshire. Your basic golf-cart ride can

yield the sight of three beings who

wrecked Triple Crowns at Belmonts —

Touch Gold, Sarava (2002) and Birdstone

(2004), the last one in a great-big groan

of a comeback to edge the beloved

Smarty Jones.

“The villain of all,” Michael Blowen

deadpanned.

They aren’t villains here, of course.

They’re part of a tapestry that’s part of a

trend: retirement homes for racehorses.

At the very moment when animal lovers

who wish racing would just go a head and

croak seem to have some momentum

with horse deaths in focus in recent

years, so does a cultural change from a

thoughtless last century to a thoughtful

this: the growing idea that slaughter isn’t

cool.

By now this Derby week, the decade-

old Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance has

accredited 82 organizations, including

this 19-year-old Old Friends farm. Here’s

where somehow a 75-year-old raconteur

good at repartee, who didn’t get tenure

teaching filmmaking at Emerson Col-

lege, then became a Boston Globe movie

writer and critic, wound up knowing in

his bones that the final furlong of life can

prove the most exhilarating.

Somehow it’s this guy, Blowen, who

grew up in Connecticut thinking horse

racing silly, except one day he accompa-

nied an editor to Suffolk Downs near

Boston, where he adored immediately

“the characters,” the “atmosphere,” the

“gambling” and the “drinking” and

wound up saying, “Some people open up

the Bible; I opened up the Racing Form,”

noting the “revelation.” He once went to

Memphis in the 1980 s to interview Jerry

Lee Lewis, stopped by Kentucky Horse

Park on the way back, saw 1970s greats

Bold Forbes and Forego and marveled.

He once just up and volunteered for a

SEE HORSES ON D4

final furlongs

A Kentucky farm offers a humane homestretch for retired thoroughbreds who once faced slaughter

PHOTOS BY JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST

Michael Blowen founded a farm where such luminaries

as 1997 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner

Silver Charm, top photo, a nd his rival S wain, who loves

to frolic in the dirt, get to peacefully live out their lives.

BY SAMANTHA PELL

sunrise, fla. — The moment

Vitek Vanecek let in the Florida

Panthers’ third goal Thursday

night i n the Capitals’ 5-1 loss to the

Florida Panthers in Game 2 of

their best-of-seven series was the

moment Washington’s never-end-

ing goalie saga reared its head

again.

Mason Marchment delivered a

dart from the right circle that

found the space between Van-

ecek’s pads at the 3:11 mark of the

second period, putting Florida up

3-1. The goal came just 27 seconds

after center Nicklas Backstrom

scored to cut the Panthers’ lead in

half.

It was a momentum-swinging

goal, a backbreaker, and one any

goalie — especially Vanecek —

simply can’t allow if the Capitals

want a shot at d efeating F lorida in

the first-round series. The goal

SEE CAPITALS ON D2

Two games

into playo≠s,

Caps’ issues

in goal return

Elena Delle Donne
does this thing
with her hips.
During
breathers when
she’s standing
away from the
Washington
Mystics’ sideline.
While she’s on court preparing for
another run. Even during a video
sketch played during a timeout
Friday night, when she
demonstrated to teammate
Tianna Hawkins the slow,
rotating pelvic motion she has to
do to stay loose these days.
After a pair of back surgeries,
painful days of rehabilitation and
the unseen toll that has burdened
an otherwise young professional
athlete who before the season
opener had played in only three
games over the past two seasons,
those granny hip rolls are now
just part of her e veryday life. As is
her hatred for sitting down.
SEE BUCKNER ON D9

Veteran shows she

still has plenty left

Candace

Buckner

BY KAREEM COPELAND

Elena Delle Donne emerged

from the darkness, stepping

through white billowing smoke

for her pregame introduction.

Dressed head to toe in white —

jersey, shorts, sneakers, socks and

compression tights — the two-

time MVP made her way to the

floor to play in a Washington Mys-

tics season opener for the first

time since 2018.

Delle Donne’s long-anticipated

return, after she played just three

games the past two seasons, came

in front of a sellout crowd a t Enter-

tainment and S ports A rena on Fri-

day night and did not disappoint.

She scored 21 points and grabbed

nine rebounds as the Mystics de-

feated the Indiana Fever, 84-70, to

open the WNBA season.

So does a six-time all-star and

SEE MYSTICS ON D9

Delle Donne flashes familiar form as Mystics cruise in opener

MYSTICS 84,

FEVER 70

KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST

Elena Delle Donne, left, had 21 points, nine rebounds and two blocks in her first o pener since 2018.

BASEBALL

Joan Adon is the lone

bright spot in the Nats’

3 -0 loss to the Angels. D7

PRO FOOTBALL

At Commanders rookie

minicamp, a first look at

last week’s draft haul. D7

PRO BASKETBALL

Joel Embiid returns for the

76ers, who throttle the

Heat in Game 3, 99-79. D9

HIGH SCHOOLS

For a West Springfield

senior, going all in on track

has reaped rewards. D12

Game 3: Panthers at Capitals

Today, 1 p.m., NBCSW, ESPN

Series tied, 1-1

Mystics at Lynx

Tomorrow, 8 p.m., ESPN2

WELLS FARGO CHAMPIONSHIP

TPC Potomac, t hrough Sunday

POS. TO PAR

1. Jason Day -10


2. Max Homa -7

T3. James Hahn -6

Kurt Kitayama -6

Luke List -6

Denny McCarthy -6

T7 Three tied -5

TV: 1 p.m., Golf Ch.; 3 p.m., NBC

148th Kentucky Derby

Post time: 6:57 p.m., NBC

Breaking down the race

Neil Greenberg’s analysis. D3

BY GENE WANG

Some nights Jason Day would

spend so much time contemplat-

ing his broken golf swing that he

dozed off in the early-morning

hours. Or perhaps sleep wouldn’t

arrive at all, with Day obsessively

picturing one modification after

the next and occasionally waking

his swing coach to discuss.

Chris Como, who also has coun-

seled Tiger Woods, almost always

answered no matter the time, pro-

viding feedback the 2015 PGA

Championship winner kept in

mind while on the range, tweak-

ing details such as his turn at

address and move toward the ball.

Those adjustments became im-

perative for the former world

No. 1. As back ailments contribut-

ed to his spiral, the pursuit to

reinvent his game was as much

mechanical as it was mental.

Validation of the arduous proc-

ess continued in the second round

of the Wells Fargo Championship,

in which the Australian’s

3 -under-par 67 in Friday’s rain-

SEE WELLS FARGO ON D8

Day refuses

to let rain

dampen his

resurgence

Australian shoots a 67

for a three-shot lead

at soggy TPC Potomac