Look who the mayor goes to the track with

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa showed up in Louisville over the weekend, attending the Breeders' Cup and pitching the organizers to move the race permanently to Santa Anita. (Not in the city of Los Angeles, by the way, but out in Arcadia.) Who did the mayor make this pitch with? According to the Times' Lance Pugmire, he was there with old friend and employer and travel pal Keith Brackpool. Now an official of the California Horse Racing Board, appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brackpool has been the force behind the Mojave Desert groundwater proposal known as Cadiz that the mayor and his friends have supported — and gave Villaraigosa a consulting job when he was briefly between elective offices. Brackpool went along on the mayor's first official trip to Asia, when he was also in a relationship with a member of the mayor's staff, and his name showed up on receipts for the more recent Europe trip. Brackpool is also part of the annual summer retreats to Iceland.