Sunday, April 22, 2012

Petergabriel -- the Racehorse

Something odd popped up on Google News under the search term "peter gabriel" -- he was running in a race in New Zealand.  I wondered at the sudden career change, considering that Peter Gabriel is not exactly a gold-medal winning athlete.

It turns out Petergabriel was a thoroughbred racehorse and not the singer-songwriter.  In the United States, if you want to name your racehorse after a living person, you have to get written permission from that person.  I'm not sure what the Jockey Club rules are in New Zealand.

This Petergabriel  was foaled on 10 October 2005.  He's a son of Senor Pete.  He's listed as brown, which usually means dark bay (translation: mostly black with brown highlights.)  He's won just over $33,000 (NZ). 

And he's a gelding.

Anyway, I hope this is one racehorse that doesn't wind up in a can or as an entree.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Taking a Little Break

My mother is having knee replacement surgery next month. This is on top of her two fractured vertebrae, her fractured pelvis (healing fine, thank you) and cracked leg. So you know what that means -- a break for me from writing that doesn't make me any money, such as this blog.

My only good news at the moment was that I won a writing contest over at Knoji. I won a $200 gift voucher to Amazon.com. I bought a heating pad for Mom, treats for the dogs, filter cartridges for the fish, two Real World CDs I had back in the 1990s, pre-ordered Peter Gabriel's Live Blood and several books on horses in art, dogs in art, Genetics for Dummies and a biography of Caligula.

I've got books to read and a mother and pets to care for. See you later!