The season-opening Formula One race in Bahrain was called off Monday because of anti-government protests sweeping the Gulf kingdom.

The race is the country’s biggest international sports event and has been on the F1 calendar every year since 2004.

“We felt it was important for the country to focus on immediate issues of national interest and leave the hosting of Bahrain’s Formula One race to a later date,” Bahrain’s crown prince said in a statement.

Eight people have been killed since the unrest began last week and demonstrators planned to use the March 13 race to highlight demands for the ruling monarchy to give up its near-absolute control.

The race could be rescheduled for later in the year. IMHO I think the canceling of the race was the right decision.

Temple Of Doom (above) set a world record at Tioga Downs on Sunday. Some of the best sophomore trotters in the world were gathered at Tioga for the 36th edition of The Harry M. Zweig Memorial Trot.

Lucky Chucky was the horse collecting the headlines heading into the race, but in the first $134,965 division of the Zweig Memorial, Temple Of Doom and David Miller stole the show with a world record performance of 1:52.4 for 3-year old colt trotters on a five-eighths mile track.

The duo left from post position number five and trotted through fractions of :27.1, :57.2 and 1:25.1 before sprinting away from the field with long powerful strides with a final panel in :27.3. The mile eclipsed the world record set exactly one week ago by Lucky Chucky and John Campbell at Harrah’s Chester of 1:53, which was shared with Explosive Matter (Ron Pierce) from 2009.

Temple Of Doom posted only the second win of the career. The 3-year-old son of Yankee Glide-Armbro Temple is trained by Jonas Czernyson for Robert Rosenheim Stable.

“He had a bad post in the final of the Hambletonian and still raced good, and last week he raced really good at Chester. We have never put him on the front end but I decided to today and he raced as good as he ever has,” said winning driver David Miller. “I was a little surprised with the world record because we didn’t go that much in the second quarter, but he was sharp today and trotted right through the wire.”

Until Temple of Doom produces again, you have to wonder if he is a one race wonder. Much like Land Grant in a 1980′s edition of the Woodrow Wilson Pace.

Mark Webber cruised to his third Formula One victory of the season Sunday after overtaking Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel on the opening lap of the British Grand Prix.

The Australian finished 1.36 seconds ahead of championship leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren, turning in an immaculate drive at Silverstone after being angered by having to hand over a key car part to Vettel.

“Not bad for a No. 2 driver,” Webber quipped over his radio during his victory lap.

Nico Rosberg of Mercedes was third.

With nine races to go, Hamilton leads the overall standings with 145 points, 12 ahead of McLaren teammate Jenson Button. Webber is third with 128 after becoming the first driver this season to win three races. Vettel is fourth with 121.

Webber’s car has been equipped with the old version of Red Bull’s front wing since qualifying Saturday after the new design was stripped and handed to Vettel, who subsequently took the pole.

But Webber led throughout Sunday after pushing Vettel wide on the opening lap, when Vettel also punctured a tire.

So they raced 80 laps without a lead change. This is almost standard operating procedure for Formula One races. I watched the Monaco Grand Prix two months ago, and the driver who got the lead on the first lap led all the way.

So why does anyone watch these races? For the crashes or to party?

BALTIMORE — He is a kid. Martin Garcia has been in this country for less than seven years and looks at the United States with a sense of wonder, whether from behind the counter of a Northern California delicatessen or now, through his racing goggles atop a thundering racehorse. On Saturday, as he led Lookin at Lucky onto the track for the Preakness Stakes, Garcia let loose a smile that would have been blinding atop a lighthouse.

Garcia drank in the pretty hats and the sports coats that dotted the grandstand at historic Pimlico. He took in the raucous infield, with its bleary-eyed revelers lifting their plastic mugs.

Behind him, Calvin Borel was stone-faced, crouched over Super Saver, the winner of the Kentucky Derby, and looking as if the weight of his Triple Crown aspirations had caved him in.

Not Garcia, 25. He was as happy as he was the night last week when the trainer Bob Baffert told him he would replace Garrett Gomez on Lookin at Lucky for this race. Garcia stayed up all night tickled by the possibilities.

Garcia had loved Lookin at Lucky ever since the first time he sat on the colt’s back for a workout last year.

For months, he worked Lookin at Lucky, last year’s 2-year-old champion, in the mornings only to hand him over to Gomez in the afternoons. Unfortunately for Baffert, Gomez had anything but luck with the colt in one troubled trip after another.

After Gomez and the colt were bounced around in the Derby and staggered in a hard-used sixth place, Baffert decided to make a change for the Preakness. Lookin at Lucky became Garcia’s mount.

When Garcia showed up in the paddock before the race and rattled off one “thank you” after another, Baffert wondered if his rider was perhaps unfocused and not ready to race.

“I think he’s so young, he doesn’t understand the magnitude of this race,” said Baffert, a Hall of Famer.

As Garcia loped Lookin at Lucky down the backstretch, however, Baffert’s doubts began to ease. His young jockey had listened to his instructions.

“I told him once you make the turn, you can’t be more than three paths off the rail,” Baffert said.

Garcia did as he was told. Now, he had the colt rolling like a riverboat, and Baffert was starting to feel pretty smart.

“I could see he had the horse in a nice rhythm,” Baffert said

Borel and Super Saver, on the other hand, were working hard and not looking all that comfortable chasing the long shot, First Dude, through a fast half-mile of 46.47 seconds, and a withering six furlongs of 1 minute 11.22 seconds.

And yes, First Dude was, at least in part,  named after Todd Palin. First Dude’s mother ? Run Sarah Run.

On a more serious note, yesterday’s result means that, once again, there will be no Triple Crown winner this year. The last time it happened was in 1978 when Affirmed completed the task only a year after Seattle Slew had done it. This is already the longest gap between Triple Crown winners in history, the previous record being the twenty-five years between Citation and Secretariat.

It’s not surprising, really, winning three of the toughest races in horse racing is a difficult enough task in itself, and it’s become even harder as horse breeding has become a more exact science. There are a lot of good, fast horses out there, and it’s harder for just one of them to dominate the sport the way that others did in the past. There will probably be a Triple Crown winner someday, but its going to have to be one heck of a horse that accomplishes the task.

Bill Jempty Update- Lookin at Lucky’s Trainer Bob Baffert has announced that Lucky won’t race in the Belmont Stakes. Baffert said if Lucky was going for the Triple Crown, he’d enter the horse. Instead he will give a colt a rest. Last year’s Preakness winner, Rachel Alexandra, didn’t race in the Belmont either.

I understand the decision made by Baffert. Lookin at Lucky has little to gain from running in the Belmont(The endurance race of the Triple Crown. It is a mile and a half in length) and there is always the element of risk. Race horses are very fragile animals. Case in point, 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. One bad step can lead to them needing to be destroyed. Maybe these races should be more spread out to encourage horses to race in all three. The Harness and Trotting Triple Crowns aren’t raced in just five weeks.

NASCAR driver Brian Vickers was hospitalized with blood clots in his legs and around his lungs.

Red Bull Racing general manager Jay Frye says Vickers is on medication and was hopeful of being released from the hospital on Friday.

Frye says Vickers complained of discomfort on his chest and went to the hospital. He says the team is not sure what caused the clots.

Frye says there is “no timetable” for Vickers’ return.

The 26-year-old is in his seventh full season racing in NASCAR’s elite Sprint Cup Series. He has two career Cup wins and made the 12-driver Chase for the championship last season.

It sounds like Vickers suffered a pulmonary embolism which is very serious. I know about it from personal, a PE almost killed me in 2005. The medication Vickers will take is coumadin. It is a blood thinner and I’m still taking it today.

Vickers could be back racing very quickly. I hope he gets well soon.

Sebastian Vettel took victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday ahead of team-mate Mark Webber as Red Bull Racing finally realised the potential it had shown in the opening two races.

Vettel took the lead from team-mate Mark Webber at the start and then headed the pack pretty much throughout. It was a welcome result for the Milton Keynes-based outfit after reliability woes cost the team victories in Bahrain and Australia.

Nico Rosberg took the final spot on the podium for Mercedes followed by Robert Kubica’s Renault and Adrian Sutil, who held of Lewis Hamilton, to take sixth.

Wet weather in Kuala Lumpar did affect the race but ultimately little was changed. As often happens in GP racing, the race result is decided in the qualifying session. Vettel, who started from the pole, led from start to finish. How do fans find a race like this or the season opener in Bahrain exciting is beyond me.

Camarero Race Track in Puerto Rico paid out $4.94 million to a single winner of its Poolpote, a pick six-type bet, on Monday, an amount that exceeds the record payout for a pick six in the U.S. but is only one-third of the record for the Poolpote in Puerto Rico.

Like the U.S. pick six, the Poolpote requires a bettor to pick the winner of six consecutive races. However, the Poolpote only pays out its full jackpot if a single bettor holds the winning ticket. If multiple bettors have winning tickets, a consolation payout is made, and the pool carries over.

According to Camarero, the winning ticket on Monday cost $10.30. The minimum wager for the bet is 35 cents.

The all-time record for a Poolpote payout was $14.2 million, distributed on March 7, 2007, which is believed to be a Western Hemisphere record for a horseracing payout. The winning bettor in that case purchased a $270 ticket. Later that year, a single winner won $6.2 million.

Some people bet hundreds or even thousands on Pick 6 tickets. Pete Rose got into tax evasion trouble when he had someone claim a Pick 6 for him when it was he and his associates who were the owners.

Two-times former champion Fernando Alonso marked his debut with Ferrari by leading home team-mate Brazilian Felipe Massa in a resounding one-two triumph at Sunday’s season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

In a keenly-anticipated race including four champions, three new teams, five rookie drivers and new rules that banned mid-race refuelling, returning 41-year-old ‘red baron’ Michael Schumacher was left among the chasing pack and finished sixth.

It was the German legend’s first Formula One race after three years in retirement, having won a record seven drivers world titles, and he was beaten by his Mercedes team-mate and fellow-German Nico Rosberg, who came home fifth.

Defending Formula One Champion Jenson Button finished 7th. Button who didn’t have that spectacular a career(Only one ever Formula One win) before before 2009, could be just another ordinary driver again.

India is set to host a Formula One race starting in 2011.

The decision was announced by governing body FIA on Thursday after a World Motor Sports Council meeting in Bahrain.

Can ladies professional golf be long for the Asian sub continent? I expect the LPGA to be playing in India and Dubai within five years.

The age of live horse racing at New Hampshire’s Rockingham Park is over.

Rockingham Park President Edward M. Callahan says the decision to limit the location to simulcast thoroughbred, harness and greyhound racing came because of increased fees imposed by the state.

Timothy “Ted” Connors of the New Hampshire Racing and Charitable Gaming Commission calls it a sad, dark day for the state.

Callahan says the decision had to be made now to give 850 horsemen and seasonal employees time to make other arrangements for the summer.

My prediction for 2010 that a horse track would closing its doors has sadly come true. In light of the financial condition of the industry, I expect this won’t be the last.

Personal note- I went to Rockingham Park once with my father during the 1980′s. It was during one of my only two ever visits to New Hampshire.

The thought of race fixing conjures up images of bad guys sitting in smoked-filled rooms deciding which horses are going to be stiffed, how they’re going to bet the bogus races and how they’re going to divide up the huge loot they’re going to make. It’s the last part that is the key. Race fixing involves greed and greed involves making money, usually lots of it. In Michigan, anyone in the race-fixing business would be lucky to make minimum wage.

Harness racing in Michigan is small-time stuff and the pools at the state’s track are pathetically small. The feature race Saturday night at Northville Downs, the only track currently racing in Michigan, was a conditioned race with a $5,600 purse. The best race on the biggest night of racing during the week, it attracted all of $8,782 in wagering in the win, exacta, trifecta and superfecta pools. After the takeout, roughly $6,800 was returned to winning bettors.

In order to fix a race, you’d have to have at least three drivers in on the scam, not to mention some gamblers and maybe even a trainer or two. At the very minimum, five people would have to be involved. Much of the pool would be taken down not by the race-fixers, but by gamblers who honestly stumbled onto to the winning numbers. Whatever the exact math is, there’d be nothing but a few crumbs left for the five or so bad guys after they divvied up their winnings. Anyone in on a fix would be lucky to walk away with a couple hundred dollars.

The betting figures out of Northville last Saturday were not an aberration. Hazel Park handles the most of any Michigan harness track. It averaged $89,612 per card in handle for 2008, according to the most recent Michigan Gaming Control Board report to be released. The average daily handle at Sports Creek in 2008 was $24,238, which comes out to about $2,000 per race. Imagine making your living fixing races at Sports Creek. You’d be on food stamps.

Would anyone fix a horse race, risk their career and jail time, for, at the most, $200 or $300? I suppose it’s possible, but it’s hard to believe anyone could risk so much for so little.

Finley goes on to wonder if investigators really understand horse racing.

If the take numbers Finley cites are accurate, I don’t see how fixing would be on these tracks for the same reason he does. That goes my usual inclination to believe if an investigation is under way in sports, that there has to be substance to it.

I grew up being taken from one Midwest race track or county fair to another*during the years 1971-1974. In late 1973 over 20 people(including some of the country’s most famous drivers) were arrested in the New York area for fixing superfecta races. I remember this huge scandal very well but it is almost forgotten today. The handles in 1973 by the way were many times bigger then today. Most of those arrested were found not guilty in court, but this and some of my father’s stories about drivers holding back, I’ve always taken a jaundiced rule when the possibility of race fixing surfaces. This time I want to see more and won’t jump to conclusions.

*- I grew up on Long Island but my father’s horses raced out of tracks in New Jersey, Ohio, and the Chicago area. New York city are tracks had strict rules about minors attending the races. In fact I can count the times I saw races at Roosevelt and Yonkers on on hand. Whereas I been to Freehold, Atlantic City, Brandywine, Scioto, Sportsmans Park, and a couple other tracks probably 200 times all combined.

Centaur LLC, owner of Hoosier Park Racing & Casino, announced Sunday, March 7 that the company has filed for bankruptcy in an effort to restructure and emerge with less debt. According to a company press release, Centaur and its subsidiaries, which include Hoosier Park, Fortune Valley Hotel & Casino in Central City, Colorado, and Valley View Downs & Casino, elected to file a voluntary bankruptcy petition under Chapter 11 to ensure that operations continue without interruption. Hoosier Park is slated to kick off an 80-day harness meet beginning March 25.

*****

This is not the first bankruptcy filing for Centaur. The Indianapolis-based company missed a scheduled $13.4 million interest payment on a $400 million-plus loan in October 2009. At the time, two of the company’s affiliated entities in the Valley View Downs project, Valley View Downs LP and Centaur PA Land LP, filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy to help retain a racing permit in Pennsylvania.

I don’t know what else to say about this news except that its consistent with the current trend in horse racing. The industry isn’t profitable any more on a stand alone basis,

Authorities say they believe as many as 30 owners, drivers, trainers and gamblers conspired to fix the outcome of certain harness horse races run at three Michigan tracks.

The Michigan State Police and the Michigan Gaming Control Board executed search warrants today at three southeast Michigan homes as part of an ongoing investigation into fraudulent wagering at the tracks.

Police say the case involves races at Hazel Park Harness Raceway, Northville Downs and Sports Creek Raceway in Swartz Creek. The tracks themselves aren’t under investigation and have been cooperating with investigators.

People in Ontario aren’t investigating.

Horse racing in Michigan is in serious trouble. Racing meets were recently shortened due to lack of funds. This news, true or untrue, certainly can’t help. Who wants to gamble on something that could be fixed?

Starting Wednesday, Feb. 24, Meadowlands bettors will be given additional handicapping information for each race. In most races, there are several drivers who are named to drive more than one horse when entries are made. Drivers have to decide which horse they will drive a few days prior to the printing of the racing program. A new television graphic will now show these choices.

If a driver was listed on multiple horses in a race, the graphic will list those horses and indicate the drivers choice.

“Many bettors feel driver choices are one of the most important handicapping angles at the track and several of our fans have requested a way to obtain that information,” said director of simulcasting and track announcer Sam McKee.

This is probably more related to simulcast rather than live racing. When I’ve been to the horse races, any change of driver or scratches were announced as betting opened on that particular race.

It is very important to know who is in the sulky when betting a harness race. In my early betting days, my father laughed when he heard I bet on a horse driven by Al Olori(?). Dad said to me “He can’t drive around the track without the help of a map.” The horse I bet on finished 6th or 7th and I learned an important lesson.

BMW Oracle owner Larry Ellison lifts up the trophy after winning the 33rd America's Cup in Valencia, Sunday. Heino Kalis / Reuters

Oracle’s Larry Ellison won the America’s Cup yacht race Sunday, becoming the first American winner in fifteen years.

American software tycoon Larry Ellison won the America’s Cup yacht race in the Mediterranean Sunday, defeating the defending champion Alinghi of Switzerland.

It’s the first time a US team has taken home the cup since Dennis Conner lost it in 1995 to Team New Zealand.

Victory, as it often does in this race, went to the team with the technological edge.

Mr. Ellison’s tri-hulled behemoth vanquished bio-tech billionaire Ernesto Bertarell’s catamaran two days in a row, in the best of three races.

This is a rich man’s event, with this year witnessing the most expensive entries in the contest’s 159-year history. Each team spent more than 100 million ($138 million) in pursuit of the most advanced, state-of-the-art sailing technology.

Oracle’s captain, for example, wore dark glasses hooked to a computer that projected on the lenses information about the wind speed, direction, and sail loads.

Both boats tapped aeronautical and material science engineers to create carbon-fiber aquatic missiles able skim the surface of the ocean at three times the speed of the wind.

What’s interesting to me about this story isn’t the return of the Cup to the USA or even that Ellison won it. Rather, it’s that I was completely oblivious to the fact that the race was even underway until I saw it in my feed reader yesterday morning. (The baby’s waking postponed my blogging on it until I happened to see the open tab again this morning.)

It wasn’t always the case. Despite being “a rich man’s sport,” the quadrennial America’s Cup competition somehow riveted American news coverage. This, despite the New York Yacht Club winning it umpteen straight times. It really got interesting in 1983, when a foreign challenger (Australia’s Alan Bond) won the race for the first time, ever. But, while that temporarily made the next couple of races more interesting — we Americans wanted the Cup back! — the race also marked the beginning of the end.

While technology was always a key factor, as it is in any sort of mechanical racing competition, the races were theretofore among quite similar yachts, at least giving the illusion that superior seamanship and tenacity were the keys to winning. But Bond won with a winged keel. The 1987 race featured a novel fiberglass hull design. Subsequent races then became about crafting boats that were technically permitted under the rules but totally dissimilar to the ones against which they were racing. Viewers quickly lost interest. (It probably didn’t help that American teams were shut out of the finals for the 2000, 2003, and 2007 matches.)

There’s a lot of competition for the sports viewer’s attention. Quite a few sports that were truly big a quarter century ago have been relegated to niche status. Yacht racing, horse racing and boxing all come to mind.