First Race

The Sun's Olympic correspondents, Rick Maese and Kevin Van Valkenburg, are blogging back and forth to each other at baltimoresun.com/olympicsblog . An excerpt: Let's get this straight: Katie Hoff's times here are not bad. Let's get this straight, too: They aren't as good as many anticipated. I have a hard time blaming Hoff. Take Tuesday's first race, for example. She set the American record in the 200-meter free, swam the fastest she'd ever swam in the race, and finished fourth. Is that failure?

BEIJING - 6:45 a.m.: In separate rooms in separate quarters of the Olympic Village, Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff wake up for the biggest, the busiest and the most demanding day either will face at the Olympics. Swimming in two finals in a single session is an arduous task. Only a handful of swimmers have ever attempted it. Today, simply attempting it won't be enough for Phelps and Hoff. Before it's over, there will be two new records and two new gold medals. Phelps will be within an arm's reach of the most venerable record on the books - Mark Spitz's mark of seven gold medals at a single Games - and Hoff an arm's length or two away from a couple of more medals.

When jockey Jeremy Rose and his mount Arcata passed the finish line yesterday in the $80,000 Harrison E. Johnson Memorial Handicap for older horses at Laurel Park, the jockey was steaming. "I didn't think I'd won, and I was [peeved]," said Rose, who rode back to watch the replay of the photo finish between Arcata and Eddie C. and learned he actually had won - by a head bob. "I had told [the horse] we had the race won if he'd just keep running. He has a tendency to wait for the other horses when he gets the lead.

STANTON, Del. -- Jockey Mario Pino entered yesterday's races at Delaware Park needing two wins to become the 15th rider to reach 6,000 career victories, but he received startling news before his first mount. One of his victories at that track last month was taken away because his horse tested positive for an illegal substance. Therefore, instead of needing two victories for the milestone, Pino needed three and ended the day with one first-place finish in his six races. "It was tough because you think every victory counts," said Pino, who lives in Ellicott City.

After finishing second twice by a half-length, jockey Mario Pino, 46, won twice at Laurel Park yesterday to move within two of 6,000 career wins. "Since Hard Spun finished second in the Breeders' Cup [Classic], I'd had [four] seconds until these last two," Pino said. "A half-length and a nose, really in those first two today. I could have done it today. I want to do it here." More than 80 percent of Pino's 5,998 wins - 4,826 - have come at Maryland tracks, including the first one at Bowie Race Course in January 1979.

Last Wednesday, on the first day of the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association track championships, Vincent Mercer Jr. anchored Cardinal Gibbons' gold-medal-winning 800-meter relay team to a come-from-behind victory in 1 minute, 31 seconds. On Saturday, Mercer earned two more gold medals in come-from-behind fashion. First, Mercer won the 100-meter dash in 11.22 seconds; then he anchored the Crusaders' 400-meter relay team to a victory in 44.78. The 5-foot-8, 160-pound senior's versatility extends beyond the track.

When Anna (Rosie) Napravnik brought Sioux for Awad home to victory in the first race on her first ride as a journeyman on opening day of the fall meet at Laurel Park yesterday, she felt the weight lift from her slim shoulders. "Getting the first one gave me confidence for the rest of the day," said Napravnik, who followed up the Sioux for Awad ($7.80) victory with wins on Family Ghost ($3.40) and Partners Due ($3.40). "My agent had me on good horses." By the time she brought Procreate ($5.40)

Next weekend, assuming the Chesapeake Bay isn't bombarded with gale-force winds, about 100 sailboats are expected to compete in one of the largest charity regattas in the state: The Hospice Cup. The regatta has been sailed every year since 1981 - so this year marks its 25th anniversary. Now there are 24 Hospice Cup regattas held in sailing communities all over the country, including in California, Florida, and the Great Lakes. The first race, however, was on the bay. We reached Virginia Brown, one of the founders of the Hospice Cup, at her Tidewater, Va., home on Friday, as the remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto passed through the Mid-Atlantic.

After being sidelined since March 5, 2005, Declan's Moon returned to the racetrack yesterday and finished second in the first race of the day at Hollywood Park. The 4-year-old Maryland-bred gelding, who was the 2004 Eclipse Award winner as the top 2-year-old and was a Kentucky Derby favorite before a foot injury, was beaten by a nose by Desert Boom in a 6 1/2 -furlong, $100,000 optional claiming race in his first race in 16 months. "His winning streak came to an end," trainer Ron Ellis said by telephone after the allowance race that ended the horse's 5-for-5 run. "But he looked like his old self.

FAIR HILL -- By all indications, Barbaro was born to run on grass. His breeding for the turf is exquisite (Dynaformer out of La Ville Rouge with Roberto his grandsire), and his early races confirmed all the suggestions of his pedigree. In his second race, he romped in the Laurel Futurity over the grass by eight lengths, and one start later, he scored his first graded victory in Florida's Tropical Park Derby by 3 3/4 lengths on the same surface. Assistant trainer Peter Brette, who also serves as his exercise rider, said, "It was me, more than anything else, who thought he was a turf horse."