Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
They call them bank holidays in Great Britain. I like the sound of that. Official. Formal.
Miles is off from school, that’s the only sign that it’s a holiday around here. Well, some friends asked if we wanted to go on a mid-day hike and an afternoon lunch. They must work at the bank. As appealing as fresh air (34 degrees at the moment) and a wind-whipped saunter sounded, we declined.
And, yes, I use the term saunter deliberately.
As John Muir, the great naturalist and conservationist, said. “I don’t like either the word [hike] or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not ‘hike!’ Do you know the origin of that word saunter? It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the middle ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre’, ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.”
Either way, we aren’t hiking or sauntering. We are working. Laptop deep in cleaning up 2025 and planning for 2026. The much-needed off season quickly in the rear-view mirror. Twenty-five horses in the Riverdee battalion. And all the details that go with them.
By the Numbers
9: Entries trainer Todd Fincher has in two New Mexico-bred stakes at Sunland Park. The trainer comprises 60 percent of the runners in the Lasenora and Corralito Steak House stakes.
Name of the Day
Unionville: For all our Pennsylvania friends. The 3-year-old gelding finished second in the 3:08 at Kempton earlier today.
Cyber Ninja saunters home Saturday morning.
