Tom Brady’s shadow in the sun

May 8, 2015

Paging Gisele.

Because Ms. Bündchen – a tiger wife if there ever was one – is all that stands between hubby Tom Brady and his squishy balls on the one hand and ignominy on the other.

As even the horses that ran the recent Kentucky Derby now know, a report issued by the Manhattan law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison on behalf of the NFL has concluded that Brady was probably aware that two lower-level employees of the New England Patriots were deflating balls.

Probably? Here are excerpts of text messages between Jim McNally, the longtime locker-room attendant responsible for the air pressure in Brady’s balls, so to speak, and John Jastremski, an equipment assistant who seems to have served as a go-between...

Down at the (Old Salem) Farm: The Spring Horse Shows

May 6, 2015

It’s always a good time down at Old Salem Farm. One of the loveliest ways to spend the Mother’s Day weekend is with the Spring Horse Shows at Old Salem Farm in North Salem. The Spring Shows, which will award nearly $500,000 in prize money, feature professional and junior riders in hunter competitions, which judge the horse’s form over the kind of lower obstacles you might encounter on a hunt; jumper events, which focus on speed and accuracy; and equitation, which considers the rider’s performance. (Only jumping is an Olympic sport.)

“I like to say jumper is like hockey while hunter is like figure skating,” says Michel Vaillancourt, who won an individual silver medal in his home country at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. The former chef d’équipe, or coach, of the Canadian Equestrian Team, Vaillancourt has been charged with designing the jumper course for the first week of the Spring Shows, which concludes Sunday. The second week runs May 12-17.

But you don’t have to know a paddock from a pasture to enjoy the graceful partnership of rider and horse or the chance to watch the action with family, friends and pets on the rolling grass or the various vendors, mostly artists and artisans doing equine-themed work. ...

The rose and the whip: American Pharoah and the ambivalence to horse racing

May 4, 2015

With American Pharoah taking the Kentucky Derby all the way from the 16th post – and not the 17th as I earlier, erroneously reported – the dream of the Triple Crown is renewed and so is my uneasiness with my enthusiasm.

On the one hand, it was a terrific race with Pharoah – the misspelling is not a mistake – coming up from behind down the stretch to overtake Firing Line and Dortmund. There is something visceral about the power of these animals. I was jumping up and down in the living room, willing Pharoah to go.

On the other hand, jockey Victor Espinoza applied the whip many times in the stretch at the Run for the Roses to the point where you couldn’t help but think, Poor thing, A.P.’s already giving it his all. ...

A pharaonic Kentucky Derby

May 3, 2015

Congrats to American Pharoah – and yes, it is spelled the wrong way – for winning a thrilling 141st Kentucky Derby, coming down the stretch to overtake Dortmund, the third place finisher, and hold off Firing Line, who finished second.

It was the third Derby win and second in a row for jockey Victor Espinoza, who rode beloved California Chrome last year; the fourth win for trainer Bob Baffert; and the first win in four attempts for Egyptian-born owner Ahmed Zayat, who said he has no fears for the Preakness, which will be run May 16 at Pimilco in troubled Baltimore.

With the first leg of the Triple Crown concluded, the other race begins – the one that has for 37 years has been defined by dashed hopes. Can American Pharoah do what no horse has done since Affirmed in 1978 and win the Triple Crown? His talent says yes and history says no, the experts say.

I say it’s such a pharaonic challenge as to be both an irresistible dream – and subject. (“Criterion,” the planned third novel in my series “The Games Men Play,” is told in part from the viewpoint of the title racehorse, who’s trying to win the Triple Crown.)

Part of the fun of Derby Day is, of course, the fashion, and not just at Churchill Downs. In my guise as editor of WAG magazine, I was among the judges (with WVOX Radio’s John Marino and jockey Tyler Buter) of the Derby Hat Contest at Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway. ...

In Vogue – Nick Kyrgios

May 1, 2015

Anna Wintour – lover of tennis and male tennis players, bless her heart – has anointed a new favorite, Nick Kyrgios.

The 20-year-old Aussie hotshot – who famously took down Rafa last year at Wimbledon – is of Greek-Malaysian descent. He says in the article in May Vogue that the food in his family’s house is amazing. We can only imagine. ...

The transgendered nature of art

April 30, 2015

Bruce Jenner’s transition to womanhood and the profile of transgendered model Andreja Pejić in May Vogue have got me thinking about the transgendered nature of art.

Consider Thomas Hardy – whose “Far From the Madding Crowd” has been made into a new film starring Carey Mulligan, the sensual Matthias Schoenaerts and the estimable Michael Sheen. For him to create some of fiction’s greatest romantic heroines, and heroes, he had to understand a woman’s mind and heart as well as that of a man. For George Balanchine to create some of ballet’s finest works, he had to know a woman’s body as intimately as a man’s.

Art has also long been preoccupied with hermaphroditism – the condition of having the physical attributes of both sexes. In ancient Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus – son of Hermes, the messenger god, and Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty – was a beautiful youth beloved by the water nymph Salmacis, who embraced him against his will in her pool and prayed that the two would become one. ...

Gay marriage v. states’ rights

April 29, 2015

Gay marriage is once again before the U.S. Supreme Court, and depending on what the Court decides, it could become the law of the land.

Opponents have taken a new tactic. It’s not about whether or not gays should marry but whether the Court or the states should decide this.

Trust me: It’s about whether or not gays should marry, and invoking states’ rights in this situation here smacks of the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, in which the Court ruled 7-2 that just because you’re a slave living in a free state doesn’t make you free.

Right now, you might be gay and married in New York but you sure as hell ain’t gay and married, in, say, Tennessee.

And that’s absurd. There are certain things in which there must be uniformity of the law, otherwise what’s to stop a heterosexual couple’s marriage from being ignored by a state? ...