A Derby for the ages

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

At one point the guy on the pony basically punched the horse in the face to get him away from the pony. That was a really unfortunate moment, much less one to be caught on live television.

And a horse that worked up will leave some people with the belief (mistaken) that the horse was drugged and that's why he was acting so crazy.

It's not really that unusual for a horse to try to savage another horse. Even in mid-race. But when the winning horse kept going at the pony I have no idea why the jackass on the pony didn't just back off and leave the horse by himself. He just made a situation worse.

I don't have any use for the horse racing industry, but I do own horses and handle them every day. I watched the video and I saw nothing cruel or potentially injurious. Certainly, it looks bad, particularly to folks who don't routinely deal with horses. But, I didn't see anything that I would consider abuse

Here is the thing. A horse weights 1200 pounds or more. They can injure a person in a blink of an eye, even when they are just being inattentive. So, you train horses to pay attention to you and take their cues from you. You are the head of the herd and they need to respect that authority.

Add in that we are talking about a stallion (who are recalcitrant just on general principle) that is pumped full of adrenaline after running a race, and I can assure you no good would come from releasing the horse and letting him "work it out on his own." I am reminded of something I heard the natural horsemanship trainer John Lyons say:

"The horse never ever has the right to kick or bite you. Biting is more dangerous than kicking because it is a more aggressive act on the horse’s part. You can’t ever justify that action in your mind.

I don’t want to be bitten. If the horse tries to bite me, I will try to kill him. His act is that dangerous and my rule is that simple. I have three seconds in which to kill this thousand-pound beast. The only limitation I’ll put on the murder is that his head will be off limits. Remember, I don’t want to blind him, I want to kill him. Immediately after I’ve exhausted the three seconds, I’ll pet him to reassure him that I still like him, but he knows that he made a serious mistake that almost cost him his life."

Added in edit: To state the obvious, you can't actually kill a horse with your bare hands. You are also extremely unlikely to injure it. But, they don't know that.

[clydepepper]

I don't watch horse racing much, but the the drone-view video of this was amazing!

This is the third memory I'll keep about Horse Racing.

The other two?

Secretariat's Belmont

and, tragically...

Ruffian breaking down.

.

[Peter_Spaeth]

The Belmont was sublime, but to me Big Red's defining race was the Derby, coming from well back to run down Sham down the stretch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MycODLdqcg

BTW while Sham's time was unofficial, it remains the second fastest time in Derby history.

[pclpads]

Most of the posts here are all "woo-woo" about the outcome. Granted, exciting to watch, but . . . I'll take the contrarian view: I have to wonder if the fix was in. Given the 80-1 odds, how does such an animal even come in 1-2-3, let alone win such a prestigious race? Perhaps a little monkey biz - or horsey biz - behind the scenes prior to the race? I think the outcome vs odds struck a huge blow for the legitimacy of racing and odds makers. After the Baffert mess last Derby, horse racing is on thin ice. This doesn't help.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by pclpads

Most of the posts here are all "woo-woo" about the outcome. Granted, exciting to watch, but . . . I'll take the contrarian view: I have to wonder if the fix was in. Given the 80-1 odds, how does such an animal even come in 1-2-3, let alone win such a prestigious race? Perhaps a little monkey biz - or horsey biz - behind the scenes prior to the race? I think the outcome vs odds struck a huge blow for the legitimacy of racing and odds makers. After the Baffert mess last Derby, horse racing is on thin ice. This doesn't help.

I think as long as the horse tests clean, it's fine.

Hard to fix a race like that any other way.

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

I think as long as the horse tests clean, it's fine.

Hard to fix a race like that any other way.

Agreed. What possible incentive would other horse owners have to throw a race or participate in some kind of fix. The expense in getting a horse into such a race is prohibitively expensive.

[Peter_Spaeth]

The horse wasn't even entered into the field until a few days before the race, right? So starting at that point someone managed to fix the Kentucky Derby before they sang My Old Kentucky Home? How? Did they (you need a they, right?) pay off every other jockey to take a dive, and they all just nicely agreed? And Sonny Leon's amazing navigation through the field at the end was what, pre-orchestrated?