Silver Charm Wrote:

>
> The Joe Hirsch is interesting and named after a
> legend writer. Those were the days reading his
> DRF. Rebels Romance has won 9 out of his last 12
> starts. And he has literally been running all over
> the World.

As Joe Hirsch's cousin, thank you for this shout out. Rebels Romance is the type of horse that got most of us to fall in love with this game, and Joe would be honored to be mentioned in the same sentence as a horse like this.

Side note and excuse me while I toot my own horn for a moment - Too bad RichieBee is no longer with us, as he would have loved the story I am about to tell for a number of reasons -- last summer (2024) I was one of three speakers at Joe's induction to the Hall of Fame. My wife, born and raised in the Soviet Union and Russia, chose not to come up to Saratoga for the event. Afterwards, she asked me how did my speech go. I told her that I cannot remember anything from it, I just froze - but the one thing that really was amazing to me and that I loved was when Joe Namath (Joe Hirsch's long time roommate) said "Thank you, Jonathan"

She said to me, that old guy? What's the big deal with that? I told her that she needed to go look on YouTube for Joe Namath 1960s TV (maybe add noxema, L'eggs, ovaltine) and she would figure it out.

She disappeared for what seemed to me an inordinate amount of time for what she was going to do, and then she came back with a full head of steam and yelling at me in Russian demanding to know why I have been hiding Joe Namath from her and why didnt I tell her about Joe Namath and when is she going to be able to meet him. She did agree with me on the highlight.

Apologies if this is a repeat story. I tried to search to make sure I didnt put it here before but the search function doesnt seem to be working.