For the record, this is the first post written in the new format. I thought it would be tough for me to get used to this look after so long with the old green template, but I guess I've taken a long enough hiatus. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. This is a much more breathable format, much cleaner looking. I think we can all be pretty happy with it. On a related note, I also learned the custom search had broken sometime during the hiatus. That has been fixed now as well. Now, onto today's business. You have likely heard about what happened at the Kentucky Derby this year. During the actual race, Maximum Security led the race wire-to-wire, and NBC did their customary immediate ride-up interview with the jockey, everybody connected to the horse was ecstatic, and everything just seemed to be pretty routine. Luis Saez, Maximum Security's jockey, did drop a hint right away without any prompting that his horse did not exactly stay on line, mentioning the crowd spooked his "baby" of a horse at one point. And it was right about this time NBC informed us of the objection. Now, I'm not a horse racing expert by any means. I haven't actually been to the horsetrack in several years at this point. But I have spent a decent number of nights at the track. I can confirm that objections happen all the time. After giving it some thought, it really is pretty shocking this doesn't happen pretty routinely in the Kentucky Derby and Triple Crown races in general. Typically, the loudspeaker just tells everyone to hold their tickets, and after a few minutes, maybe ten at most, the results go official, almost always unchanged and everybody can cash their tickets or groan, whichever is more appropriate.* Every now and then, though, a horse does get DQ'd. It's certainly not often, but rules and rules and everybody understands that. *I'm definitely normally on the "groan" side of this. As much as I like betting on the horses, I'm not much good at it. Now, in this particular instance, we have all seen the replays a hundred times by now, I'm sure. During the race and even on the first few replays, I saw maybe a little bit of bumping, but that's just going to happen when you've got almost 20 horses fighting for the same spot. On such a sloppy track, it was going to be unlikely one horse was going to really pull hard away from the pack until the very end. Maximum Security came closest to it. You can see the picture above which horse is noticeably cleaner than the rest. But then the replays didn't stop. We kept seeing it over and over, and we got a better sense of what we were seeing. The more it went on, and the more we kept seeing that "over the shoulder" angle, we could start to see just how close everyone was to, and I think this the scientific term, a total fucking disaster. When Maximum Security came out of his line, you can really start to see War of Will's chest pressing right up agains Maximum Security's rear. This causes War of Will to throw on the breaks, causing other horses around him to break like a wave over a particularly stubborn rock. Did it bother Country House all that much? No, but nobody was claiming that. He was just in the right position at the right time. It absolutely affected the rest of the field, and if War of Will and Maximum Security had gotten their legs tangled,* we might have been looking at a bloodbath on national network TV. *And, again, I can't impress this enough. It only seems to be through an act of God that didn't happen. If either horse falls there, on that position on the track in crowded a turn, who knows what other horses and jockeys end up going down with them or trampled or God knows what else. It was horrifying enough to see what happened to Barbaro. This could have been just so much worse. I don't even the race steward there. She had such impossible pressure on her shoulders, pressure I'm sure she never thought would be on her, because when was the last time you remember an objection at the Derby? But here we were. Not only would millions and millions of dollars shift hands based on her decision, which seems like pressure enough. But remember, too, Maximum Security was the favorite. Preserving his win likely preserves a chance at a Triple Crown this year. Handing the win to Country House, quite the longshot at 65-1 at post, most likely dooms that effort and turns the whole conversation about the Triple Crown this year into the sort of controversy no sport really wants to deal with. But God bless Barbara Borden and her people. They went with the what rule says, not with what would be easy or popular. Gary West, Maximum Security's owner, might be understandably upset and looking for an appeal,* but they got this one right. It's nice to see some good, tough, even-handed leadership nowadays. It's just a shame we have to look to the horsetrack to get it. *Which does not look likely. Speaking of, nobody asked Donald Trump to weigh in, but of course he did. And he didn't like it. Somehow, this is PC culture run amok and robbed the best horse of the win. Maybe somebody should explain to him that, when you break the rules to win, even unintentionally, it means you don't get to call yourself the best horse. I wonder why he might have taken that DQ personally? Anyway, Gary West says he's taking his ball and going home. Maximum Security won't run again in the Preakness, and that's a shame. The best way for him to prove he really is the class of these horses is to get back out there and win clean. But I guess you don't get to be a billionaire and get into high profile horse racing without and ego. Egos of that size, though, tend to bruise easily, and West took quite the hit. Maybe he'll get over this in a week and do the right thing and let the horse run for redemption, but I'm not counting on it. Comments are closed.
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