Handicap

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. -- Allijeba caught the leaders in the closing yards for a one-length victory in the $57,500 Essex Handicap yesterday at Oaklawn Park.Allijeba, the favorite of the field of 10 older runners, covered the 1 1/16 miles in 1 minute, 43 4/5 seconds. Allijeba, with Pat Day aboard, paid $6.40, $4.60 and $3.20.On the Edge, ridden by Robbie Davis, was second and returned $8.40 and $4.60. Bedeviled, last year's Razorback Handicap winner, led for all but the final strides under Larry Snyder and paid $3.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Mine That Bird spent the week tucked away in the Kentucky Derby Museum, not far from the track at Churchill Downs and the throngs wondering who will win the 139th run for the roses. The 2009 Derby winner seems to enjoy when fans stop in for a visit. A gelding who retired from racing in 2010, he appears at ease. And even as rail birds and once-a-year track goers alike fall for impressive looking favorites, Mine That Bird reminds them that their hunch is actually a guess.

LAUREL -- Laurel Race Course management has added the Northern Wolf Handicap to its stakes for the 1991 segment of its winter meeting.The race will honor the Maryland-based speedster who won the first running of the Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash at Pimlico Race Course. Northern Wolf was retired after suffering an injury while prepping for the Breeders' Cup Sprint at Belmont Park.The Northern Wolf Handicap, at six furlongs, will be worth $50,000 and is scheduled for Jan. 19. The race is a prep for the $200,000 General George Stakes, which will be part of a sprints doubleheader Feb. 16. Sharing the bill will be the $200,000 Barbara Fritchie Handicap for fillies and mares, at seven furlongs.

Forecasters are predicting a gradually increasing chill in the air over the next 10 days, bringing weather cold enough for snow around Christmas. But the odds of a White Christmas are still relatively slim. The National Weather Service is calling for temperatures to slide about 10 degrees downward from where they are starting this week with highs in the mid-50s. Highs are expected to reach the mid-40s with lows around freezing by this weekend, according to the weather service's five-day forecast . Forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center in College Park are expecting slightly above-average chances for cold temperatures and some precipitation for the weekend through the day after Christmas.

Chris Cook won both the scratch and handicap singles titles in the Greater Baltimore Bowling Association championships held at Bowl America Glen Burnie last weeend. Cook rolled 749 to win the scratch and 782 to win the handicap.Other champions included: team--handicap, Miss Five, 3,674. scratch, Burkholders, 3,151; doubles--handicap, Dan Shaden and Chuck Tillman and Frank Daywalt and Bill Daywalt, 1,466; scratch, Larry Detwiler and Tillman, 1,424; all-events: Handicap,Bob Boone, 2,259. Scratch, Bruce Hollen Jr., 2,111.

Miss Slewpy returned to her favorite distance of 1 1/8 miles yesterday and won the $74,060 Maryland Racing Writers Handicap at Laurel Park.The 4-year-old granddaughter of Seattle Slew briefly hung after catching Buffels at about the three-sixteenths pole. But then the Oliver Goldsmith homebred dug deep and had the extra stamina to carry high weight of 120 pounds and roll on to a one-length victory over the rallying Part With Pride. Buffels finished third.Miss Slewpy was ridden by Larry Reynolds and completed the nine furlongs in 1 minute, 52 seconds.

Elaine Bassford expects a phone call this morning from the Bahamas.It will be her trainer, Carlos Garcia, who is vacationing there on a cruise ship, calling to discuss today's Carousel Handicap at Laurel Race Course.Bassford's 5-year-old mare, Brilliant Brass, makes her 13th start of the year. All of her 1992 races except one have been in stakes, and she has won eight, starting with the Conniver Handicap on March 8 and going through the Ladies Handicap at Aqueduct on Nov. 22.When she started the year, Brilliant Brass carried a low 112 pounds in the Conniver.

Greatsilverfleet, a stakes winner in Maryland and Arkansas, heads a field of six expected starters in today's Grade III $100,000 John B. Campbell Handicap at Pimlico.The 4-year-old colt, trained by Dale Capuano, won the Annapolis Stakes at Laurel and the Essex Handicap at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas. Edgar Prado has been named to ride Greatsilverfleet, who could be pointed to the May 14 Pimlico Special.Other horses entered in the 1 1/16-mile race are Reputed Testimony, Ameri Valley, Johnny Rome, Super Memory and Local Problem, a 5-year-old who won the Harrison E. Johnson Memorial Handicap at Laurel last month.

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. -- The final leg of the the 1991 Fillies and Mares Starter Handicap Series and a simulcast of the $250,000 Bay Meadows Handicap highlight tonight's 12-race card at the Charles Town Races.In the distaff starter handicap, the eighth race on Charles Town's program, William Bayne, Jr.'s Crystal City Go Go and David Winpigler, Sr.'s Versatile Keys head a field of nine fillies and mares at a mile and a quarter. In the point standings to determine the leading trainer of the series, Versatile Keys (Jeff Runco)

Leona Grap will find herself in an unusual situation this week. She is the only woman in a 17-person group -- all from the Baltimore area -- going off to play in a golf tournament. And, if she plays to her handicap, she probably has a better chance of winning something than most of the men.That is the beauty of the Du Pont World Amateur Handicap Championship, a tournament in Myrtle Beach, S.C., which has grown from 680 players in 1984 to the record 3,354 who will begin the 72-hole grind tomorrow.

The absence of Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another opens up the 2012 Belmont Stakes from a wagering perspective. Dullahan and Union Rags are likely to be co-favorites, with Dullahan possibly taking slightly more wagering. The Union Rags faithful still believe he is one of the top horses in the country despite back-to-back disappointments in the Florida Derby and Kentucky Derby. He did take one of the worst trips in the Derby and ran very well once he found room. Dullahan was moving the best at the end of the Derby, finishing a strong third.

On a recent Sunday, after parking my car at the Mars on Ridgely Road and trying to enter the store, I was approached by a woman saying, "You could be charged a $500 fine for that. " I asked her what she was talking about, and she noted that I had parked in a handicap space. I told her that I have a displayed handicap hanger - because I have had two foot surgeries and will have another one. She went on to tell me that her husband sometimes cannot find a handicap space. I told her sometimes, I can't either.

Don Backe and Karl Guerra share more than a love for sailing: After their lives were transformed by tragedy, both men used the sport and the organization they now run to regain their sense of purpose. Backe helped found Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating in 1991, four years after a horrific one-vehicle automobile accident in Crownsville left the former independent private school headmaster a paraplegic at age 51. Guerra is now executive director for the Annapolis-based nonprofit organization that helps those with physical, mental and emotional handicaps - along with others who can't afford financially to sail - gain entrance to a sport Guerra thought he had lost when he suffered a massive stroke in 2000 at age 52. But it could take the dream of a much younger man without any disabilities with the same love of being on the open waters to help keep CRAB afloat.

Watching Monday's General George Handicap from New York, trainer Rick Dutrow had one word to sum up the results: "Beautiful. " "I loved it," Dutrow said by cell phone after his two runners - favorite Yawanna Twist and fourth choice This Ones for Phil - came home first and second in the $200,000 Grade II race at Laurel Park. Toby's Corner, last year's pre-Kentucky Derby favorite, took third and Eighttofasttocatch was fourth. Ridden by former Maryland-based jockey Mike Luzzi, Yawanna Twist, a 5-year-old bay who finished fourth in the 2010 Preakness Stakes, broke well and found his way into position behind This Ones for Phil, who sprinted to a clear, early lead.

MISL Blast beats Lancers for 5th win in row The Blast won its fifth straight Major Indoor Soccer League game and improved to 5-1 with a 10-4 win over the Rochester Lancers on Saturday night. Defender Mike Lookingland led the way with two goals and an assist in the team's fifth consecutive road win. Stephen DeRoux and Adriano Dos Santos scored 49 seconds apart in the first quarter to give the Blast a 4-0 lead. It was the first goal of the season for both players.

Eighttofasttocatch led from start to finish in the $75,000 Jennings Handicap on Saturday at Laurel Park. First away from the gate under Sheldon Russell, the 5-year-old son of Not For Love opened up on his five rivals through the turn, where Russell gave him a breather until the pack began to close in. Then, with just a little urging, Eighttofasttocatch ran to a 4 1/4-length victory in 1 minute, 35.76 seconds for the mile distance. Indian Dance finished second, and Concealed Identity took third.

The second annual Best of Bowling Mixed Doubles Duckpin Handicap tournament drew 124 doubles teams from the mid-Atlantic area to Riviera Bowl the last weekend in April.While the official prize list with a $2,000 first-place guaranteed prize has not been released by the Baltimore Duckpin Bowlers Association, it appears that the winners of the event are Sandy Locker and Wayne Gruss.The team of Locker and Gruss prove what every bowler should know but that many do not realize -- when a tournament is a handicap event anyone can be a winner.

Night Fax, a winner over a sloppy track in her most recent start, will carry top weight of 122 pounds today in the fifth running of the $75,000-added Maryland Racing Writers' Handicap at Laurel Park.Cormorant's Flight, another stakes victor last time out, also is in the field of nine for what shapes up as a wide-open race over 1 1/8 miles.Night Fax hasn't run since taking the Nobiliary Stakes on Nov. 7 at Laurel and was most known last year for winning the Grade 2 Delaware Handicap.Off her most recent form, a horse to watch is New York-based Nappelon, who is trained by Rene Araya, a former jockey agent and assistant trainer in Maryland.

It was just after noon on a recent weekday, the parking lots at the Annapolis Westfield Mall were already full, and a woman in a dark sedan weaved through the swelling traffic, looking for a place to park. Jessica Lawrence, a Glen Burnie resident, saw what she was looking for — a single, empty handicapped space near the front entrance to Sears. She pulled in, killed the engine and breathed an apparent sigh of relief. Then Cpl. Mark Camm appeared on the scene. "May I see your ID?"