Kentucky Derby

[Abagadro]

About to head to Bendover, Nevada to place my bets, so I am calling my shots:

$2 Exacta Box: 6,8,9,10 w/ 4,6,8,9,10,12,15

$1 Tri Box: 9/8, 9/8, 4/6/10/11/15/19/20

$2 Tri: 10, 9, 8

$2 Tri Box: 8/6, 8/6, 15/12

$10 WPS on 9

$10 Win on 6

$1 Super Box:  10, 9, 8, 4/5/6/11/15/19/20

$1 Super: 8, 6, 15, 9


Total Wagered:  $120

I'll post results tonight.   

Who does everyone else like?

[Righ]

Fuck, I always thought that it was about wearing flash clothes, expensive shoes and watches, and turning up in a supercar or helicopter before getting smashed on $100 a shot liquor. I had no idea that people actually watched the race still.

[Merusk]

No idea on #'s, but two of the Handicappers a local show interviewed suggested Colonel John and Pyro as horses to watch.  Both were turned-off by Big Brown's trainer and think he's 1) talking too big a game and 2) has too much history* against him to make any kind of a decent showing.  One went as far as to say he's not even putting the horse into his Super or Trifectas.

They both also liked Court Vision enough to suggest that leaving him out of your picks might be a mistake. One of them felt really strongly about Smooth Air.. and I think that was the one he really liked because of the Jockey riding him, who's known for making really good picks about which horse he rides.

Wish I had a few extra bucks to drop on the Derby this year, but I don't. I dislike gambling but I don't see horse races as stupidly random as most other forms. Ah well.

* No horse in the history of the Derby has won out of the 20 gate. No horse other than Barbaro has won after taking 5 weeks off and .. dammit I forget the other one but no horse since 1916 has done it.

[Signe]

Abagadro is going to bend over!!!  HAHAHAHA! 

(sorry)

[Teleku]

Holy crap, they just euthanized a horse on the track...

[Righ]

Sport of Kings.

[WayAbvPar]

That was awful. Such an exciting race, and then such a tragedy at the end.

I funded my TVG account with the express purpose of betting the Derby (didn't feel like hitting the track). After depositing, I couldn't find a way to bet Churchill Downs. Did some research on the 'net, and discovered that TVG and CD had a knock down drag out fight about 18 months ago. So now I have ~$44 on the site burning a hole in my pocket (bet $6 on an Emerald Downs race blind).

Probably for the best though. I didn't handicap it very thoroughly at all (would have before wagering, obv), but my WAG picks were Colonel John and Pyro. Pyro got squeezed out early and was no factor. CJ ran ok but didn't figure.

[Merusk]

Holy crap, they just euthanized a horse on the track...

Not only that but it was the 2nd place horse, Eight Belles.  Really tragic, but she broke both her front ankles. Haven't read how that happened, though.

So none of the ones I'd have bet on, had I followed the local handicappers, did crap. Awesome.  I do chuckle about the guy who said to leave BB off entirely, though.

[Strazos]

Doh, missed it while either playing GTA4 or watching the Flyers put the Canadians away.

[Paelos]

2nd horse to go down on a weird injury in the last 3 years in a triple crown race. I don't like what I'm seeing in the sport. I'll just say it now. I suspect there's massive tampering going on with these horses in terms of drugging, but we're not talking about it.

[Merusk]

Nah, just read a blog comment from a guy familiar with the sport and what he said makes more sense than drugs.

 Basically, horses are 'aged' by the January 1 immediately following their birth.  So a "1 year old" would be any horse born between Jan1 and Dec31 of the year previous.  Most horses are born in the Spring, but if you're born in October you're a 1 year old that next January.   Horses aren't physically mature until 4 or 5 years, but the US beings racing them at "2 years"    So, what we're seeing is young horses on underdeveloped bone structure running full-out. 

Then you add-in that horses with weak or spindly ankles aren't excluded from the breeding process.  All that is looked at in a racehorse is "how fast are they?"  Physical traits that would be detrimental to a wild horse (and therefore weed them out due to early death) aren't taken out of the system, and things like weak or small ankles keep getting passed around and bred further into the lines of 'good racers.'   (The commenter mentioned that most of these horses have ankles no wider than a human wrist, but are expected to hold 1000# at 30mph.)

[Abagadro]

Bleh. A big goose egg. Totally dropped Big Brown from all of my bets (except in the show in a couple of them) because of his post position and lack of races (all on poly I believe).  That was a heck of a race for him. Strong horse.

[Righ]

I don't like what I'm seeing in the sport.

The horses that don't get put down humanely because of injuries have a very high probability of being used as food long before they grow old. Once a horse can't race its a financial liability, and the people who breed and own them don't do it out of girly love for horses. Every year tens of thousands of race horses are slaughtered in America alone... oh wait, not America, its banned... in Canada and Mexico, after they are transported there. What you see in the sport is a lot nicer than what you don't see.

[Paelos]

I don't like what I'm seeing in the sport.

The horses that don't get put down humanely because of injuries have a very high probability of being used as food long before they grow old. Once a horse can't race its a financial liability, and the people who breed and own them don't do it out of girly love for horses. Every year tens of thousands of race horses are slaughtered in America alone... oh wait, not America, its banned... in Canada and Mexico, after they are transported there. What you see in the sport is a lot nicer than what you don't see.

I know they slaughter horses. That's not what I meant. I meant the push to get these horses faster and faster at unhealthy or possibly doped rates. The horse they put down on the track today lost BOTH front ankles. The vet on call was visibly stunned, and in a later report said that it was virtually unheard of.

[Abagadro]

She was really running over her level. She should have been in the Oaks where she was originally was scheduled instead of the Derby. Ran her guts out and couldn't take the punishment. I think the trainer/owner put her in a race she couldn't handle. Nothing to do with doping or whatever.

[Kitsune]

Horse racing is a weird thing.  If you wind up with a big win you can be rolling in dough for a horse's life, as long as you're okay with jerking off your horse every day to sell the 'champion sperm'.  Most horses just wind up with chump change, an occasional $6-10,000 purse, maybe $40,000 over their racing lifetime if they aren't a completely shitty horse; a very good horse can gather around $250k in their career.  And that purse has to be split with the jockeys, of course.  Anyone who's in it for the money is bound to be an unhappy and ruthless trainer, because anything short of a champion isn't going to make any profit whatsoever.  You have to get a horse, raise the horse, feed the horse, train the horse, haul the horse around to racetracks...  big investments in time and cash, and everything hinges upon a living animal that could keel over from any number of ailments.

[Abagadro]

as long as you're okay with jerking off your horse every day to sell the 'champion sperm'.

Actually, in thoroughbred racing breeding where the real money is, breeding  has to be done with "live cover," i.e. the sire having sex with the mare. Otherwise you can't register the colt with the Jockey Club which is a requirement for racing. Just a useless factual tidbit for you all.

[Merusk]

And boy, let me tell you, being "Sperm cup guy" - who has to catch the dribble after the mating's done so they can get a count and run other tests - isn't the most disturbing job in THAT little process.

[El Gallo]

I remember reading some horseracing columnist (Andrew Byer I think) writing several times about how modern horses are bred to be extremely fast with no emphasis on durability at all. I think he said it was because of current economic incentives in the sport where you make your $ by winning a couple early races and then studding rather than having a long racing career. So, racehorses (at least in the US, I'm not sure about other countries where horseracing is more popular) are being bred to be faster and faster and more and more fragile, whereas they used to be bred for a mix of speed and durability. This leads to more injuries.

My memory is a bit hazy, but I think it was something like that.

[Nebu]

Only two problems I see with racing today:

1) El Gallo touched on this already.  Many breeders are using medications to mask the fragility of horses leading to more fragile genetic lines.  This is going to continue producing animals that are injured more often and end their careers much younger.

2) There's no reason that jockeys need to use a whip.  Most jockeys will tell you this themselves, but maintain the use of it as more of a traditional aspect of the sport than a necessity.  I think it's time to just get rid of them.  It would have little to no effect on the race field and may even help elevate the sport after the current event. 

[Righ]

See, I still think that killing 200 healthy horses every day because they don't win races is worse than both the above.

[Nebu]

See, I still think that killing 200 healthy horses every day because they don't win races is worse than both the above.

How is this different than killing millions of cattle daily?  Ok, maybe not millions... but a lot. 

[Righ]

We raise the cattle to eat as food, and have ethical standards of slaughter. With horses, we've decided that we don't eat them, we've banned their slaughter and so they are smuggled across borders and killed in horrific ways involving multiple stab wounds to their neck. So I guess it comes down to how do you want to go - compassionately and with a minimum of trauma and pain or cooked in baking heat, bruised, beaten and savaged until you get to your final destination where a brutal and lingering death will be meted out on you? So, I see a difference. YMMV.

[Nebu]

Well, I'm a vegetarian so I see both as bad. 

I guess the best solution would be to allow racehorse owners to humanely slaughter their animals for dogfood without repercussion from the media.  Sadly, the fuzzy bunny principle applies.  For some reason slaughtering one non-human mammal for food is seen as bad while slaughtering another for food is just fine.  It's why Americans see eating dog as a tragedy while eating cattle is perfectly reasonable.  The cute factor plays a big role in our decision making process.  Though deer are cute and people are fine with killing them... hmmm... maybe my theory needs some tweaking.   

I'm totally against cruelty to animals Righ.  I just realize that society at large allows certain levels of it when it suits their needs. 

[Righ]

I'm totally against cruelty to animals Righ.  I just realize that society at large allows certain levels of it when it suits their needs. 

Yeah, but in this case its a fairly grotesque result of activism - people successfully got horse slaughter banned in America, and so above-board 'humane' slaughter that at least had a minimal level of oversight was replaced by something much much worse. It seems that if the equine activists really cared, they'd be less NIMBY and more concerned with the plight of the animals. If they cannot get rid of the racing industry (and they can't, realistically) then they should welcome horse abattoirs back with open arms, and instead focus on pressuring the state and federal governments to provide better oversight and laws to ensure ethical 'disposal'.

[Merusk]

The cute factor plays a big role in our decision making process.  Though deer are cute and people are fine with killing them... hmmm... maybe my theory needs some tweaking.   

If people kept deer as pets, you'd see the fuzzy bunny principle applied to them as well.  You're on the right track of thinking, but since they're wild vs domesticated animals the fuzzy principle gets abandoned.

[Lantyssa]

The fuzzy bunny problem solves itself when the deer start eating Mom's petunias.

[UD_Delt]

The fuzzy bunny problem solves itself when the deer start eating Mom's petunias.

Deer are just like rabbits and breed almost as fast. Rabbit are in the same boat, sure they're cute and all but they are also on the menu.

[Riggswolfe]

Sadly, the fuzzy bunny principle applies.  For some reason slaughtering one non-human mammal for food is seen as bad while slaughtering another for food is just fine.  It's why Americans see eating dog as a tragedy while eating cattle is perfectly reasonable.  The cute factor plays a big role in our decision making process.  Though deer are cute and people are fine with killing them... hmmm... maybe my theory needs some tweaking.   

You're on the right track.

Eating meat is an instinct! Yeah! And I know what it's about. "I don't want to eat the meat because I love the animals. I love the animals." Hey, I love the animals too. I love my doggy. He's so cute. My fluffy little dog.. He's so cute- There's the problem. We only want to save the cute animals, don't we? Yeah. Why don't we just have animal auditions. Line 'em up one by one and interview them individually. "What are you?" "I'm an otter." "And what do you do?" "I swim around on my back and do cute little human things with my hands." "You're free to go." "And what are you?" "I'm a cow." "Get in the fucking truck, ok pal!" "But I'm an animal." "You're a baseball glove! Get on that truck!" "I'm an animal, I have rights!" "Yeah, here's yer fucking cousin, get on the fucking truck, pal!" We kill the cows to make jackets out of them and then we kill each other for the jackets we made out of the cows.

[shiznitz]

2) There's no reason that jockeys need to use a whip.  Most jockeys will tell you this themselves, but maintain the use of it as more of a traditional aspect of the sport than a necessity.  I think it's time to just get rid of them.  It would have little to no effect on the race field and may even help elevate the sport after the current event. 

It is not a whip. It is called a crop and unless you hit a horse in the eye, it is very hard to hurt the animal with one. Crops are a non-issue. 

In harness racing (horse pulling a wheeled cart) they use a whip-like thing, but it is really just a crop on a longer handle and the horse is not beaten with it.