Paul Mara has his playoff beard all year long.

So the New York Rangers (and a few other NHL teams) are having a playoff charity promotion, encouraging fans to grow a playoff beard with the team to benefit Madison Square Garden’s in-house charity. Maybe it’s because I’m not sure I want to involved with anything called “Beard-A-Thon”, but I wanted to do something that fit a little bit better with my interests and that more of my friends across the country might want to be involved with.

Since so many of my friends are either Kentucky-based, parents of small children or, like me, interested in all things horse racing, or some combination of the above, I hit on the idea in conjunction with fellow New York Rangers fan Teresa Genaro of the Brooklyn Backstretch blog, of doing the playoff beard to benefit Anna House, which provides child care to backstretch workers at Belmont Park. Basically, what we’re asking you to do is pledge a small amount, a nickel, a dime, a quarter, a dollar for each day that the Rangers stay in the playoffs (which started on Wednesday, April 15th). Since the Rangers won their first two games, your minimum commitment is twelve days, and your maximum commitment (and unfortunately for me, very unlikely– we’re seeded 7th of 8 teams in the Eastern Conference) would be to June 15th (or 62 days).

Now, of course, there’s only one problem with this whole thing… I’ve never been able to successfully grow a beard. So this may get quite comical. Here’s what I look like after Day 5 of the experiment:

Oh dear.

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Please contact me at Ian@IanLozada.com to make your pledge… I’ll email you the information on how to make your donation to Anna House so that you get your tax benefit documents. In addition, the person who makes the largest pledge will get a print of my photo of General Quarters winning the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland last week.

Furthermore, any Kentucky or New York based 2009 brides, who make a pledge will get a free two hour photo session with me this spring!

So, if you don’t have a hockey rooting interest, hopefully you will now, and we can do some nice things for the kids of the people who make horse racing go for all the rest of us!

Say it with me, kids: Let’s go Rangers!

I’ve been splitting my time equally between wedding and editorial work recently. Got home at 3AM early Saturday morning from shooting a wedding at the W Hotel in Manhattan’s Union Square and was back out the door by noon to shoot at the Belmont Stakes. It was a really exhilarating day as some of the finest horses in the nation were competing in the six graded stakes races, topped by Better Talk Now’s last gasp finish in the Manhattan on the grass and then Rags To Riches becoming the first filly to win the Belmont Stakes in 102 years. There was no doubt she was the best bred horse in the race, and to make it even more impressive, she stumbled to her knees at the start, basically giving the boys a head start. Her connections have her pointed to at least two, possibly three, of the remaining shooting days on my New York horse photo schedule, so I’m looking forward to seeing her in my viewfinder a lot this summer!

…can be seen here.

http://www.drf.com/covers/052507.pdf

I’ve never had a cover before.

Today, on the Daily Racing Form website (http://www.drf.com), a photo I took of a Nick Zito trainee, Sun King, appears on the front page, illustrating David Grening’s article (http://www.drf.com/news/article/85148.html, free registration required) about the former Kentucky Derby starter, who will be one of the favorites in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park, a race he lost last year by a nose.

Always fun to have some of the other work come to light…