NEW YORK -- Fate has to be pulling a few strings here. The horse, a 6-year-old gelding that not too long ago was given little chance of racing again, is called Aces Mark, and he is entered in Saturday's eighth race at Belmont Park.
That would be Saturday, September 11. That would be Aces Mark, a name created in tribute to Garnet "Ace" Bailey and Mark Bavis, two National League Hockey scouts who were killed on that terrible day nine years ago when the United States was attacked by terrorists.
Bailey and Bavis were on United Airlines Flight 175 out of Boston, bound for Los Angeles and the start of training camp. Bailey, still a big, joyful kid at age 53, had done pretty much everything in his 33 years with the NHL, winning two Stanley Cups as a player and five more as a scout, but he still treated every new season as if it were his first. Bavis, only 31, was as Boston as the Freedom Trail, his accent thick, his loyalty to family unbreakable. A star player in high school and later at Boston University, Bavis had a talent for discovering and mentoring players in amateur circles. He was hired in 2000 by the Los Angeles Kings to work as an assistant scout under Bailey, the legend who now was the Kings' director of pro scouting.
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