I'm glad I was listening, because I caught this comment on today's televised horse race, The Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park.
(for those who don't follow horse racing, an 'equipment change' usually means the horse has had a tack change of some sort. Usually that means something like "blinkers on" or "blinkers off".
But today's NBC presentation of the race card at Belmont Park produced a real doozy. I'm going to paraphrase it.
Commentator, in reference to a horse named Coach Inge:
"Last year he had the ultimate equipment change: he was castrated."
Showing posts with label Thoroughbred racing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thoroughbred racing. Show all posts
04 July 2015
06 June 2015
Finally!!!!!!
By golly, he did it.
American Pharoah won the 2015 Triple Crown. (despite having a misspelled name).
37 years after Affirmed won the Belmont, we finally have #12 in the Triple Crown winner's list.
American Pharoah ran in front wire to wire. He won by a comfortable five lengths. The time was only a few seconds off Secretariats mighty win of 1973. No horse will ever equal Secretariat's incredible 30 length lead. But then again, there will never, ever again be a horse of Secretariat's caliber. Those bloodlines are gone. Although it was a pleasure to see Secretariat's breeder and owner, the Grand Dame of Racing, Penny Chenery, in the stands. What a lovely lady. The last of her kind.
Bob Baffert, the trainer, did something right. Now, I've never cared for Baffert. He had a reputation among the other trainers of being a pompous asshole. During his 'salad days' he flaunted his wealth...a blonde bimbo in a fur stretched across the hood of Baffert's car (which may have been a Mercedes, or a Jaguar). The unkind things he said about other trainers. He wasn't the nicest of guys, and there's no call for being a shithead.
However, he seems to have mellowed greatly since having a heart attack..or losing several Belmonts that were THIS close to being won.
The bimbo is now his wife, and maybe she managed to shove a bit in his mouth and give him a bit of a tweak on the reins. Or maybe he is still a pompous asshole. The media isn't showing that part of him anymore.
What I think happened was..he, like other horse trainers, was forced to go back to being HORSE TRAINERS.
When Eight Belles broke down at the finish line, having been the Place (#2) in the Kentucky Derby in 2008, revulsion filled the country. Horses have been breaking down with depressing regularity for years now, but something snapped in the collective American horse racing public's psyche. No more. No more horribly broken horses in front of millions of watchers. No more.
I think that at that moment, if Someone had said, No more racing in the US, the vast majority of racing fans would have agreed. It was too horrible, watching the gallant filly staggering on the splintered ends of her cannon bones. People began to bitch. Loudly.
The Jockey Club, a hidebound and antiquarian association that in the last fifty or so years has succumbed to Money itis (if someone has enough money, the JC will change the rules to accommodate their outrageous demands), had always ignored the average non horse owner before. But this time, people got pissed enough to say, you know what, I think I'd rather watch golf than see another horse die. And die they did, because the trainers and the Jockey Club allowed horses far too young (sometimes only 18 months old) to race, and allowed them to be drugged into insensibility..all for the goddamned dollar.
Somehow, we got through to them. It may be a case of too little too late...horse racing is dying, at least in the US..but they did change some rules. One was, no horse hits the track until it is an honest to god 2 year old. And, I believe, they scaled back the unbridled use of drugs.
That's why so many horses broke down, and why we've not had a Triple Crown winner since 1978. It's because trainers ('horsemen') no longer had to train. They no longer had to be a horseman. They depended on the drugs to keep the horse fit. They depended on the drugs to keep the horse running. Drug the colt to the gills and run him. The owner wants a return on his investment, the businessmen doing the breeding don't know a colt from a coat hanger. Breeding race horses had devolved into a business arrangement, not a studied match made on understanding equine bloodlines. As the president of the WA State Thoroughbred Breeder's Association once put it, 'we're not in the business of breeding race horses. We're in the business of selling 2 year olds."
When you devalue the animal to that point, it becomes nothing but a stock market certificate. Oh, they're still incredibly expensive. But the business, the TB industry, had become an Industry, not a rich man's hobby. The horses stopped being horses. They became pawns on a chess board. In the game of chess, the reason pawns are the most numerous pieces is because they are 'dispensible'. They are nothing of value. You can lose every pawn you own and still win.
The horse racing industry and the Jockey Club had grown complacent. Breakdowns stopped being a tragedy, a painful thing to see, and became "collateral damage'. Breakdowns became 'the cost of doing business'. The cruelty of how the horse got to that point was conveniently forgotten.
The problem is that it is ethically and morally wrong. Horses are living,breathing beings. Yes, they are Animals. Animals have no rights. But the public doesn't like seeing a gorgeous race horse treated like an animated bicycle. And the bettor doesn't like seeing his money thrown away on a horse that may or may not have won. Bettors don't think that way. They bet on a 'sure thing' and when that 'thing' becomes a "DNF" (did not finish) because its legs snapped, they've lost their money.
I might be wrong. But it seems to me that once certain restraints were imposed on the TB business..that of letting a horse mature a little, keeping the drugs out of his system, they had to go back to being Horse Trainers. This meant, no more milk shakes, no more Lasix/Bute etc hiding problems. No more thyroid medication to put artificial muscle on a horse. They had to go back to the three things that made a race horse: Conditioning, feeding, and individualized training. The owner had to be made aware that this was an animal, not a machine.
The thought strikes me that perhaps the Trainers welcomed the restraints, slight as they may be, that the Jockey Club was forced at gunpoint to impose. Now they had an out..."Well, I'd love to drug this colt, but....you know, they JC says I can't anymore. Sorry." Because I do believe the trainers love their horses. But they don't own them. Most of the big guys, like Baffert, are in the business to train the horses, and have many, none of whom are 'theirs'.
Baffert did a good job of bringing his horse to the peak of condition at the precise time he needed to be.
That takes time, effort, and an eye for the horse. I will give him that.
Will we have another spate of winners in the coming years? I hope so.
American Pharoah won the 2015 Triple Crown. (despite having a misspelled name).
37 years after Affirmed won the Belmont, we finally have #12 in the Triple Crown winner's list.
American Pharoah ran in front wire to wire. He won by a comfortable five lengths. The time was only a few seconds off Secretariats mighty win of 1973. No horse will ever equal Secretariat's incredible 30 length lead. But then again, there will never, ever again be a horse of Secretariat's caliber. Those bloodlines are gone. Although it was a pleasure to see Secretariat's breeder and owner, the Grand Dame of Racing, Penny Chenery, in the stands. What a lovely lady. The last of her kind.
Bob Baffert, the trainer, did something right. Now, I've never cared for Baffert. He had a reputation among the other trainers of being a pompous asshole. During his 'salad days' he flaunted his wealth...a blonde bimbo in a fur stretched across the hood of Baffert's car (which may have been a Mercedes, or a Jaguar). The unkind things he said about other trainers. He wasn't the nicest of guys, and there's no call for being a shithead.
However, he seems to have mellowed greatly since having a heart attack..or losing several Belmonts that were THIS close to being won.
The bimbo is now his wife, and maybe she managed to shove a bit in his mouth and give him a bit of a tweak on the reins. Or maybe he is still a pompous asshole. The media isn't showing that part of him anymore.
What I think happened was..he, like other horse trainers, was forced to go back to being HORSE TRAINERS.
When Eight Belles broke down at the finish line, having been the Place (#2) in the Kentucky Derby in 2008, revulsion filled the country. Horses have been breaking down with depressing regularity for years now, but something snapped in the collective American horse racing public's psyche. No more. No more horribly broken horses in front of millions of watchers. No more.
I think that at that moment, if Someone had said, No more racing in the US, the vast majority of racing fans would have agreed. It was too horrible, watching the gallant filly staggering on the splintered ends of her cannon bones. People began to bitch. Loudly.
The Jockey Club, a hidebound and antiquarian association that in the last fifty or so years has succumbed to Money itis (if someone has enough money, the JC will change the rules to accommodate their outrageous demands), had always ignored the average non horse owner before. But this time, people got pissed enough to say, you know what, I think I'd rather watch golf than see another horse die. And die they did, because the trainers and the Jockey Club allowed horses far too young (sometimes only 18 months old) to race, and allowed them to be drugged into insensibility..all for the goddamned dollar.
Somehow, we got through to them. It may be a case of too little too late...horse racing is dying, at least in the US..but they did change some rules. One was, no horse hits the track until it is an honest to god 2 year old. And, I believe, they scaled back the unbridled use of drugs.
That's why so many horses broke down, and why we've not had a Triple Crown winner since 1978. It's because trainers ('horsemen') no longer had to train. They no longer had to be a horseman. They depended on the drugs to keep the horse fit. They depended on the drugs to keep the horse running. Drug the colt to the gills and run him. The owner wants a return on his investment, the businessmen doing the breeding don't know a colt from a coat hanger. Breeding race horses had devolved into a business arrangement, not a studied match made on understanding equine bloodlines. As the president of the WA State Thoroughbred Breeder's Association once put it, 'we're not in the business of breeding race horses. We're in the business of selling 2 year olds."
When you devalue the animal to that point, it becomes nothing but a stock market certificate. Oh, they're still incredibly expensive. But the business, the TB industry, had become an Industry, not a rich man's hobby. The horses stopped being horses. They became pawns on a chess board. In the game of chess, the reason pawns are the most numerous pieces is because they are 'dispensible'. They are nothing of value. You can lose every pawn you own and still win.
The horse racing industry and the Jockey Club had grown complacent. Breakdowns stopped being a tragedy, a painful thing to see, and became "collateral damage'. Breakdowns became 'the cost of doing business'. The cruelty of how the horse got to that point was conveniently forgotten.
The problem is that it is ethically and morally wrong. Horses are living,breathing beings. Yes, they are Animals. Animals have no rights. But the public doesn't like seeing a gorgeous race horse treated like an animated bicycle. And the bettor doesn't like seeing his money thrown away on a horse that may or may not have won. Bettors don't think that way. They bet on a 'sure thing' and when that 'thing' becomes a "DNF" (did not finish) because its legs snapped, they've lost their money.
I might be wrong. But it seems to me that once certain restraints were imposed on the TB business..that of letting a horse mature a little, keeping the drugs out of his system, they had to go back to being Horse Trainers. This meant, no more milk shakes, no more Lasix/Bute etc hiding problems. No more thyroid medication to put artificial muscle on a horse. They had to go back to the three things that made a race horse: Conditioning, feeding, and individualized training. The owner had to be made aware that this was an animal, not a machine.
The thought strikes me that perhaps the Trainers welcomed the restraints, slight as they may be, that the Jockey Club was forced at gunpoint to impose. Now they had an out..."Well, I'd love to drug this colt, but....you know, they JC says I can't anymore. Sorry." Because I do believe the trainers love their horses. But they don't own them. Most of the big guys, like Baffert, are in the business to train the horses, and have many, none of whom are 'theirs'.
Baffert did a good job of bringing his horse to the peak of condition at the precise time he needed to be.
That takes time, effort, and an eye for the horse. I will give him that.
Will we have another spate of winners in the coming years? I hope so.
02 February 2015
Horse racing in the US is dying.
Thoroughbred horse racing in the United States is dying.
I've listed several reasons. I've kept them relatively short, because..well, because I could type for days and make this such a long post no one would read it.
So, without further ado (wow..I've never used that phrase before), here are my reasoned reasonings.
1. Thoroughbreds are fast, but frail.
In the last thirty years, they’ve been bred solely for speed. As is
true in any sort of breeding for one trait, others suffer. So while they’re
blazing fast, TB’s are so because they have too light bone, too small feet,
skin half as thick as a regular horse, and a propensity for bleeding from their
lungs which leads to:
2.
Over-reliance on performance enhancing drugs.
This doesn’t necessarily mean steroids,
although I’d bet my boots there are horses on steroids right now. I mean drugs
like Bute and Lasix. A horse running on bute is doing so to mask the pain. A
horse running on Lasix is doing so because its lungs aren’t capable of
handling the high speed. I suspect some of the latter comes about due to:
3. Inbreeding
Conformational defects, such as obstructed or too small airways in horses (to name but one) crop up far too often when closely related animals are bred to one another. Examples such as stallions serving their daughters are common.
A few years ago, every single horse in the
Kentucky Derby was related to the other horse in the field. They’re all Northern Dancer horses. By
breeding solely to Northern Dancer, breeders got faster horses, but the older,
unrelated bloodlines have died out. Breeders have no choice now than to breed
their horse to a related horse. In biological terms, this is called a ‘genetic
bottleneck’. In laymans’ terms, the breeders have bred themselves into a corner
that they can only find a way out through outbreeding. But:
4. Refusal to
bring in fresh blood.
Breeders refuse to bring in horses that were bred from non-speed bloodlines. If you were to suggest breeding to an eventing/hunting/showjumping/dressage Thoroughbred, you'd be laughed off the farm.They won't breed to a horse that doesn't have a racing background. It’s all about money, now,
and breeding to an outside line (if one can be found) will mean that the horse
will probably be stronger, have better stamina and endurance, and will never
win a race.
5. Disgust at the very public breakdowns on the
track
Horses are breaking down more often for
many reasons: they’re too light boned, raced too young raced too hard
or too often, and racing on drugs. The public doesn’t know. What they do know
is they can’t shake the memory of Eight Belles trying to stand on the shattered ends of her cannon bones.
The gallant filly’s breakdown wasn’t the only memorable breakdown, but with far better
cameras, it was far more observable and visceral.
6. Off track betting and Casinos
Whether we like it or not, gambling pays
for horse racing. When Off Track Betting became legal, and the later
legalization of casinos, gamblers didn’t have to go to the track, could bet on
other sports, and play other gambling games.
7. Loss of interest in the sport
The variety of means to gamble is part of
this, but the increasingly urban nature of the fan plays a very big part.
Horses were an important part of the American culture until after World War II.
Now you can meet people who have not only never met a horse, in some cases,
can’t discriminate between a horse and a cow.
8. Fewer breeders
The number of people who are actively
breeding Thoroughbreds has been dropping like a rock. It takes a lot of room
and even more money to breed racehorses. Kentucky Blue Grass country is no
longer mile after mile of farms with names like Calumet, Idle Hour, Claiborne
Farms, BelAir Stud. Nowadays, the Pike is lined with names like Walmart, Gated
Community, Starbucks, and McDonald’s Hamburgers.
11. Fewer
horses
My home state, not the biggest of TB
producers, produced only 350 Thoroughbred foals in 2014. Given that only a few
actually get to the track, that’s not enough to maintain a sport. This results in a situation such as that
found at Aqueduct, a famous track near New York City. Aqueduct led the nation
in numbers of breakdowns at its track (I want to say it was 28 horses in one
season.). The reason: the track had been purchased by a nearby casino, which,
on the face of it, would make you think it a good thing. But there are far
fewer racing horses now. They’re being raced more often than once every thirty
days (I may be wrong on how long a horse may rest between races). They’re being
raced while sore. They’re being raced too far, too fast, too often, without a
rest-which leads to breakdowns.
9. Fewer tracks.
Even storied tracks such as Pimlico (in
Maryland) have to fight off the ever increasing demand for their properties.
Developers look at the track as so much ‘wasteland’ that they could turn into
millions of dollars for their pockets. Cities see that land as far better used
for things like strip malls and office buildings.
10. Fewer
jockeys.
We as a nation are getting heavier. The century old regulation that a jockey weigh no more than 115 pounds is a difficult weight to
maintain. In the early part of the last century, most jockeys were black, due
much in part because they grew up malnourished, and therefore, small and thin.
White boys took over after the Depression, possibly for the same reason.
Beginning in the 60’s, however, the jockeys ranks were..and continue to be
filled with Hispanic men, as both black and white Americans are better fed and
bigger. Owners and trainers were blatantly sexist, refusing to allow girls to
be jockeys until the late 70’s. Even now, most jockeys are Hispanic because
they are usually shorter and lighter weight than the average American of any
race or sex.
Need I also mention that so many youngsters have never ridden a horse and probably never will.
11. Cheating
trainers
Cheating trainers aren’t new. It just
amazes me that they still try it, but they do. In the case of the big name
races, there are too many eyes to see nonsense going on, but in the smaller tracks/races, there’s still a
lot of cheating going on. Horses forced to run with a sponge up one nostril, or horses are 'milk shaked'..calcium carbonate pumped directly into their stomachs just before a race-are just a few of the ways to 'enhance' a horse without using drugs. When they’re found out, they are fined, but not
banned, which means they get away with it. The horse suffers.
12. Bleeding hearts who think the horses are being forced to run.
Organizations exist that focus on what they think is abuse to the animal, and have a lot of money to make their point. Given enough money and legislative palms to grease, they can and have gotten tracks shut down.(and I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a developer funding the effort). These people, though, don't know squat about the horse. All they see is what they perceive as 'cruelty'. They point to the jockey's whip as proof of force. They cannot believe that you cannot make a horse run if it doesn't want to. And they don't want to believe that Thoroughbreds run for the love of it.
13. Television
producers that focus on everything but the horse
Most people cannot afford to actually go to the track, so watch it on television.
Television producers such as NBC have
turned horse racing into a circus, complete with clowns dressed in hideous
hats; Hollywood celebrities mugging for the camera; "Page 3", (dressed, but obviously well endowed)
blonde “reporters” who proudly proclaim
that they know nothing whatsoever about horse racing; dress designers
discussing the latest fashions; ‘human interest’ stories that have only the
faintest connection to the horse; and football players being given a tiny task
in order to make the tie in for NBC’s real money maker, football. The horse is so forgotten that in many cases,
the only thing you know about it is its name and the odds on it.We can see this crap on regular television every day, so why bother watching it at what is supposedly a horse race?
The Thoroughbred loves to run. I would love to see TB racing where there is no jockey and no handicapping. Put the horses in the gate and let them go. THAT would be fun.
But I'm dreaming. That will never happen.
It's sad, but I am convinced that Thoroughbred racing in the US is on its last legs.
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