I don’t know about Hong Kong, but in Japan the horse’s weight is included in the pps and substantial changes are thought to be an important handicapping factor. And, as everybody knows, most trainers assume something is seriously wrong when a horse starts to lose its appetite.
The telecast either wasn’t on or I didn’t see it at Kee, but I also wouldn’t be at all surprised if Donna Barton Brothers, a very successful former jockey and wife of trainer Frank Brothers who I believe still exercises horses, would notice that SS lost that much weight, as she’s very knowledgeable and has been around horses her entire life due to the fact that her mother Patti Barton was a tough and trail blazing jockey who rode on the Midwest circuit back in the 70s.
This probably falls into the category of information many of you either don’t need and maybe don’t even want to know, but seeing the name reminded me of a coincidence two years ago when Patti Barton---and about 75 of her friends—sat next to me at Kee, and I learned something from her that I’d been wondering about for a number of years, namely what’s up with the large groups of older ladies who seem to be just about everywhere and are easy to pick out because they all wear the same purple dresses and red hats. The way she described it was basically a “girls just want to have fun” social society for women of a “certain age.” In other words, except for the fancy clothes, the Red Hat Society, as its called, is kind of like a distaff version of the fun loving geezers who never miss a day at the OTB.
