Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
APTriple Crown should be lengthened
The dominance of Big Brown is not the sole reason only one other Derby horse will soldier on to Baltimore. Avoiding the crown’s second jewel, like watching horses outrun speed-infused pedigrees, is routine for the connections of high class Derby-aged stock. Consequently, until stamina and soundness are bred back in, the duration of the Triple Crown must be lengthened.
For four years, we’ve been advocating a schedule consisting of the first Saturday in May, first Saturday in June, and July 4th, in effect making horse racing a national holiday. On balance, the modern high class thoroughbred needs, at minimum, four weeks between starts to approximate peak performance. Agree or not, today’s Triple Crown schedule is anachronistic and, as such, fraught with peril.
By allowing for further maturity, greater participation of Derby horses throughout the series, and allowing late-developing individuals to join the group, a longer Triple Crown schedule would not only maintain the degree of difficulty but actually might add to it. Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Affirmed and all the others can rest easy.
Eight Belles’ trainer Larry Jones and jockey Gabriel Saez, wise beyond his 20 years, did nothing wrong. Neither did owner Rick Porter, whose ultimate decision it was to race a filly against 19 colts in an atmosphere charged by 157,000 julep-fueled fans. Fillies run against colts all the time elsewhere, goes the mantra, but mainly on forgiving grass.
The issue of fillies vs. colts on today’s harder, faster surfaces is problematical. Given the brittle nature of the modern horse, the injury masking that permissive medication allows and the added stress of competing at the highest level, owners of fillies should reconsider whether a place in the record book is really worth it.
Keep fillies with their own kind
Fillies need not “prove something” by taking on males. It’s a sporting gesture only in the abstract. Racing all out on the fence alongside Foolish Pleasure was anathema to Ruffian. Rags To Riches never was the same after her triumphant Belmont struggle with Curlin — and she was a robust specimen. Subsequently she was forced to miss the Breeders‘ Cup and was retired this year when she no longer could withstand training.
In some part, Eight Belles lost her life because she ran the race of her young life. Even as Saez was trying to take care of her in deep stretch and beyond, the filly kept trying to catch Big Brown. That’s what separates very good horses from the common ones; they keep trying, hard. Practitioners and fans alike need to care for the horses that care for us by doing our bidding.
The industry no longer can afford its deniability. It can’t make bad steps disappear, but it is morally bound to try, hard, to do for the animals that allow those tethered to them to bask in their reflected glory while enjoying and, in some cases, enriching themselves.
American racing must take stock of the way it conducts itself and do something before government, responding to public outcry, has a notion it can do it better, or even ban it altogether. The paradigm must change. The time for true reform is at hand.
All segments of the industry must share in this, taking small steps to show that it truly cares about the inevitable bad ones. Anything less is indefensible. Anything less would be criminal.
The first of three pools of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager begins its three-day run on Friday and the bet's opening scenario is very similar to each of its opening pools since the wager was created in 1999.
It's first time that Classic will be broadcast in primetime on Nov. 3.
 | INTERACTIVE |
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 | Slideshow |
 | Derby celebs Plenty of stars from the entertainment and sports world attend the 136th Kentucky Derby. more photos |
| INTERACTIVE |
 | Triple Crown winners The horses that have won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont in the same year. |
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
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Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.