Who Saw That Coming?

I find it amusing that ~Mausie-Maus~ puts up a blog page dealing with the hockey playoffs. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great. When I lived in New England, I was a great hockey fan. I didn't have much choice; my boyfriend was the goalie on the high school team, and we lived 45 minutes away from Boston - Go Bruins! Now that I live in SC, I find that "hockey" and the terminology associated with it are treated as some kind of foreign language.

So, I'd like to tackle some ruminations on my favorite sport: Thoroughbred horse racing. Before I start out, let me just say that I am one of those people you hear referred to as a "connection". I own racehorses, and I've been a licensed trainer since I was in my early 20's. I've never made it to the bigtime, but I never wanted to either. I refuse to stoop to some of the inhumane and underhanded tactics that some trainers resort to. None of my horses have ever had to suffer through a cataclysmic "breakdown" during a race. I've had the pleasure of attending the Derby several times in my life, and I firmly believe that the first Saturday in May should be a national holiday.

About the middle of March, I started following the Daily Racing Form to see which rising 3 year olds were looking Derby bound. I think it's safe to say that the babies born in 2008 have turned out to be a spectacularly mediocre crop. It was difficult to pick a definitive favorite since there was no cream rising to the top. I finally started looking at a horse named Dialed In. He was training well, with a reputable trainer and a good jockey. His prep races were good, he seemed sensible. His blood lines were perfect for the Derby, he's the son of Mineshaft, a prodigious sire and winner of many stakes races himself.

Lo and behold, as the Derby approaches, Dialed In is looking more and more like the favorite. Then, two days before the Derby, Uncle Mo is scratched, and Dialed In gets an almost perfect post position. Ladydoc is a happy camper, it just looks like one of "those" years. Dialed In's odds don't make him a spectacular bet, but a safe one. I never watch all the televised hoopla, just the saddling, the walk around the paddock, and the horses going through the tunnel and out onto the track. Dialed In puts up minimal fuss (he has a rep as a bad actor in the saddling enclosure and on the way to the post). He looks a little perturbed, but he's not running his whole race before he gets on the track.

He likes to run at the back of the pack, and catch the rest of the field and pass them to win. It's hard to explain why some horses do that, and some like to be out front from the git-go, but that's his preferred style. He's well-behaved in the gate (the most dangerous part of the race) and breaks away cleanly. And then... nothing. For some reason, he never hits his stride, never settles in, doesn't put on his game face. It's like he could care less.

And then, from nowhere comes a horse almost no one has ever heard of; Animal Kingdom. 'Scuse me? Who? Let me get on the iPad and look that one up real quick. Yup, it is a real horse. What's that you say? Never run on dirt before in his life? Seriously? Well, he sure looks serious. Pretty deadly, in fact.

And, as Animal Kingdom sails away with the 137th Kentucky Derby, it appears that if the race was 2 or 3 miles longer, and every other horse in the field dropped dead, sooner or later Dialed In would have caught them and won. What's up with that?

That's why they call it a horserace!