We noted earlier that a horse named ROVE would be battling CRAFTY MAVERICK in a Wednesday race at Beulah Park in Ohio.
Alas, dreams dashed again.

Deadspin reports:

And coming up on the rail, it’s Landslide!: Rove has been scratched from his claiming race against Crafty Maverick and Bad Little Fellow. If he didn’t have that 300-pound jockey named George on his back the poor guy might have had a chance.

Extreme Mortman senior horse racing correspondent Craig Brownstein alerts us to this major Ohio development after studying with his magnifying glass the Daily Racing Form:

ROVE the racehorse continues his downward trip through the claiming ranks and has surfaced in Ohio for a race at a flat mile at Beulah Park this Wednesday.

He faces what looks to be another mediocre field that includes CRAFTY MAVERICK.  The morning line hasn’t been fixed yet but I expect long odds.  His claiming price is now $3,500.00.

Also on the card: EX NAVY in the second race.  Good luck players.

Poor Chicago Cubs.  Poor Hillary Clinton.

They both have to wait for another season.

We interrupt our dashing and erudite coverage of media and politics to bring you this … Maryland Terrapin football player Kevin Barnes’ takedown of California’s Jahvid Best

No wonder the Maryland coach’s name is Ralph Friedgen.

And this priceless reaction from Barnes:

“He’s not permanently hurt, so I’m fine with that. Had he died or something, I’d have felt bad, but he’ll probably be playing next week.”

I may just donate to the Maryland Alumni Fund after all.

Bank failures?  A dime a dozen.

Government intervention in the marketplace?  Happens all the time.

Financial stocks tanking on Wall Street?  Yawn.

So what’s different today that spells total catastrophe and doom?

This stunning, unbelievable occurrence:

On Capitol Hill, key lawmakers either declined to comment on the Lehman’s fate or did not return calls. A spokesman for Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), for whom the day’s events represent a hometown crisis, said Schumer, who chairs the Joint Economic Committee, was withholding comment until the status of Lehman Brothers became clear.

Chuck Schumer speechless?  That’s it.  The world is officially upside down.  I’m putting whatever money I have left in my mattress.  And I’ll keep it there until Schumer holds another press conference.

Boo Stephen Hunter!  As Teddy Roosevelt fans, we couldn’t help but be outraged by what the kill-joy writes in his Washington Post piece on the Nationals today:

The presidents’ race. You know, those four big-headed dweebs in their 1892 vaudeville shtick of faww-down-go-boom before every game! They stumble in from the outfield and stagger to a clearly scripted finish near the Nats dugout. It’s always the same, it’s never funny, it’s weirdly dismissive. I mean, if the city is known for anything, it’s known for the seriousness with which the game of politics is played. It’s a hard-knock, prisoners-will-be-shot milieu, so why is it dissed and turned into stooge’s comedy? The race is just as certainly disrespectful to those great men, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, who gave and fought and risked. Now they’re represented as spindly bodies without knee-joints sustaining gigantic alien heads that seem drawn not from history but from Japanese anime.

They are the worst attributes of modern marketing: cute, harmless, without mythology or morphology, charmless, awkward, silly, sexless and pointless. They belong on lunchboxes, and connect not with the grand parade of tragedy and triumph that is both America and baseball but with things like Alvin and the Chipmunks, bad CGI movies, gnomes and Beanie Babies. Cute is scarier than death. Watching them makes my teeth hurt, my head ache.

Wanna give the spoil-sport more hurtful teeth and a more severely aching head?  Then watch this…

Then consider the day a panther attacked Teddy.

Hey, Stephen Hunter, still think that’s not funny?  It’s hilarious!

While Barack Obama takes issue with how many houses John McCain has (Instapundit roundup here), it’s worth considering the happy story of Olympic taekwondo bronze medalist Noor Ahmad Gayezabi.  He’s from Afghanistan, a country that celebrates homeownership.

How do we know?

Consider his reward for winning the bronze:

President Hamid Karzai immediately called to congratulate Nikpai. He also awarded him a house at the government’s expense.

See?  Sometimes there are rewards greater than 72 virgins.

President Bush has joined Phelps fever:

US President George W. Bush on Sunday telephoned Michael Phelps and told the US Olympics swimming sensation “if you can handle eight gold medals, you can handle anything,” the White House said.

“Laura and I are proud of you. Our family is proud of you, but most importantly, America is proud of you,” Bush, who was here on his Texas ranch, told Phelps, whose eight gold medals at a single Games are unmatched.

“We’re excited for you. You handled yourself with humility. Give your mom a big hug for me. 41 and I were honored to get a picture with her,” Bush said, referring to his father, George Bush, the 41st US president.

In other words, Michael Phelps, mission accomplished.

Cincinnati Enquirer:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may be in the midst of leading his country into war with Georgia, but he’s also apparently and allegedly in the midst of purchasing a horse that had recently been owned by Kentucky Speedway owner Jerry Carroll.

It was reported by various outlets last week that Carroll had sold his promising 3-year-old thoroughbred Racecar Rhapsody, which finished fourth in the Preakness Stakes, to an unknown international group. Carroll said on Monday that there are some rumblings that Putin is heading a group that bought the horse and that his next start will likely be in the Russian Derby on Saturday at the Moscow Hippodrome.

Of course, if the horse loses, he’ll be imprisoned then shot.

(Thanks to loyal Extreme reader and horse lover Craig Brownstein of Edelman for alerting us)

Get a load of this, from the Jerusalem Post:

Politics reared its ugly head at the Olympic Games once more on Saturday after an Iranian swimmer refused to compete alongside Israeli Tom Be’eri.

Mohammad Alirezaei was due to race against Be’eri in the fourth heat of the 100 meter breaststroke, but pulled out, apparently under the orders of the chiefs of the Iranian delegation.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened and it doesn’t surprise me anymore,” Olympic Committee of Israel General Secretary Efraim Zinger told The Jerusalem Post. “Politics takes precedence over sport with the Iranians and the Olympic spirit is as far from them as east is far from west.

Maybe they should give Iran a gold medal — for lunacy.