Blame It on the Dog by Jim Dawson Page A

orthotic shoe inserts at a loss of over $200,000.
    Goosebumps brought in chemist Richard Cavestri to find out what was causing the problem. Cavestri traced it back to eight drums of glycerin that Bell Chem, a local outfit, delivered to Goosebumps in late 2002 and early 2003. Though Goosebumps’s contract called for a food-grade glycerin ideal for feet cushions, Bell Chem delivered a lower-grade variety that might also have been watered down. As a result, air bubbles formed inside the gel. And when buyers later slipped the insoles into their shoes and went stepping out, their feet made “a flatulence-like noise,” according to Cavestri.
    Bell Chem President John Cervo claimed he didn’t know about the lawsuit until the
Sentinel
called him for a comment. “This is unbelievable,” he said, insisting that the dispute was a private matter between Goosebumps and his insurance company, which will probably end up footing the bill. He referred any further questions to an attorney, who did not return phone calls. That’s probably the best thing to do when you’ve been caught flat- and flatulent-footed.

RUNNING WITH THE WIND AT HIS BACK
    I n horse racing lore, they are thoroughbred names that will live forever: Man of War, Seabiscuit, Secretariat, Hoof Hearted … Hoof Hearted??
    You can see him coming up on the outside in the stretch and crossing the finish line on countless sports-blooper TV shows like WB’s
Most Outrageous Outtakes
, or the 2003 ABC special
ESPN’s Blunderful World of Sports
, as the track announcer screams, “Hoof Hearted is taking the lead, he’s pulling away, it’s Hoof Hearted, Hoof Hearted, Hoof Hearted!”
    Viewers all over America looked at each other and asked, “Did he just say what I think he said?”
    Apparently there have been several Hoof Hearted thoroughbreds over the past quarter century. One reportedly raced in South Africa several decades ago; there was also one in Canada in the early 1990s, and another in California in 1982. In the late ’90s, Hoof Hard Ed ran in the Midwest. Any one of those horses could be the one in the often-aired TV clip.
    But the champion among the bunch is Sky Hoof Hearted, a four-year-old California gelding that in 2005 won several races around the Southwest, from Santa Anita (near Pasadena) to Turf Paradise (Phoenix). According to the Thoroughbred Database at www.pedigreequery.com , Sky Hoof Hearted is descended from Native Dancer—horse racing’s first television star, who won everything in1953 except the Kentucky Derby—through both his sire (Bertrando) and dam (Specific Gravity). He was bred by Martin J. Wygod and trained by F. C. Frazier at River Edge Farm, just outside Solvang.
    So why would anybody name an expensive thoroughbred Hoof Hearted? Well, some people simply like to put one over on everybody with a practical joke, especially when there’s a gatekeeper of good taste, which in this case is the all-powerful Jockey Club. Thoroughbreds have to be registered with the Jockey Club within a year of their birth (they’re all given an official birthday of January 1 of the year they’re born to put them into an age group for racing) and named by the February of the year they turn two. The owners submit six names in order of preference for the Jockey Club’s approval, and there are rules for what names can’t be used, including “names that are suggestive or have a vulgar or obscene meaning,” according to racing expert Cindy Pierson Dulay—“Names considered in poor taste.”
    Like Hoof Hearted.
    Since a horse’s name can’t be changed after its first professional race, some owners try to sneak sly, innocent-looking monikers past the Jockey Club judges, before the track announcers rattle them off over the loudspeakers. By then, the horse is out of the barn, with his name intact. Along with Peony’s Envy, there have been Nip Pulls, Potopein, and If You See Kay. More subtle was the name of a 1979 filly, Breakwind, sired by Warm Breeze.
    But