Something cool happened Saturday. I recommend you take time to simply enjoy what I’m about to talk about. Don’t let the moment go by. It’s too easy to be distracted by mundane shit and miss excellence when it’s not shoved in front of your nose. Take time to freebase the roses!
While normal people were settling in for a happy mothers’ day weekend and abnormal ones were getting all frothed up to commit mayhem against Supreme Court Justices, the Kentucky derby happened. The press was busy advocating fighting the Russians down to the last Ukrainian and the Ministry of Information is busily punishing all why don’t toe the line about “penumbras” which “emanate”. And Biden said… look squirrel…
Amid Rome’s continued decline, the Kentucky Derby happened like it was managed by adults. It happened on time, on budget, as planned, and without drama. It’s a reminder we were once a civilized people who could do civilized things.
I don’t generally care about horse racing, but I’m happy someone does. A world where people had horses and didn’t race them would be unspeakably sad. For that matter, I’m a man and therefore think that virtually anything that moves can and should be raced. Only wimps and vegans disagree.
This time the race was extra special. Twenty horses run in the big event. Each year there’s a few with a shot at the big win but the rest are destined to never make it further than they are now; like Bernie Sanders at a Democratic primary. Everyone knows this. Pari-mutuel betting is as close to a “free market” as any and it ruthlessly cuts the shit. It’s rarely “incorrect”.
Yet this year a horse won against very long odds. (I think it was the biggest upset since 1913 or something.) This horse, which virtually nobody cared about, came from the back of the pack and curb stomped all competition like Godzilla with an attitude. It was amazing!
A horse paying at 80:1 won! (For the pendants reading, I’ve seen reports, that it was 73:1 but Forbes tells me that a $2 bet would have had a $163.60 payoff, which smells like 80:1 to me.)
When a horse pays like that you’ve seen something improbable and, in this case, awesome. I watched the race and then re-watched it several times (it’s only a two minute race).
It. Was. Beautiful.
You simply must see it. Grim’s Hall has a link to a good video. There are others. All are awesome. This one benefits from “after the fact” arrows pointing out where the action is happening. The first few videos I watch lacked that and I had to watch a few times just to understand what I was seeing. Stop right now and watch it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DsQyMvPwtg
Words don’t do it justice. It helps to know what you’re looking at; especially if you watch the whole race; which I recommend. (It’s a 2 minute race, has our attention span eroded so much that 2 minutes of flat out running horses is too boring?)
Horse #21 is named Rich Strike and the jockey has a red helmet. At the start of the race look wayyyyyy in the back. The real action starts back in the loser section, amid the horses that skipped leg day and the jockeys that smoke. Our, as yet unnoticed, hero starts out there and then something snaps and he goes into beast mode!
The horses at the front of the pack were having a fine race already. They were tearing the place up. They truly set a blistering pace. It was a fast tract this weekend. If any of the leaders had won, it would have been pretty cool to watch.
But the dial goes to eleven around halfway through. Some of the horses are slowing down from just plain rocking the first half and meanwhile Rich Strike is surging past them one at a time. In the last quarter… something magic happens. And that’s the best I can describe it. Grit? Full on brutal insanity? I’ve no idea where that horse reached to find the extra strength and spirit, but it pulled up a fucking tornado. Rich Strike got something in his equine head and was going to get what is best in life.
I’m not a horse racing fan. Maybe I miss the subtle nuances. But by God I loved this race. Rich Strike comes out of mid pack like a fuckin’ dragon. The horse doesn’t want to win… it wants to kill. That horse had a direct line to Valhalla. The damn horse could see it. It was going to go past, over, around, or through anything in its way.
Here’s a different video I cued to start at 1:40. Look for a red hat jockey mounted on pure hell. He’s coming in on the inside and practically runs over the ass of the third place horse. Does Rich Strike slow down? Hell no, he moves to the outside and blows his opponent’s doors off. That pass is an amazing feat of man and animal. After that, it does some sort of supernatural turbo boost to gain the lead:
The jockey was no slouch either. In a pack of athletes, all of which were going for broke, Rich Strike’s jockey did shit that would be sketchy on a liter class sport bike. I’m not much of a horse rider so I hardly know what I was seeing. All I can say is I was impressed. He squeezed into places he couldn’t fit and bludgeoned his way into places smaller than that. And the horse was totally on board with this… if it had a knife it would have stabbed its way to the front.
The front horses had been trading the lead in a righteous battle of their own. They didn’t see the cruise missile with a jockey coming up their tailpipe until it was too late. Nor did anyone slack off. Rich Strike gained the lead and pushed until it won by half a length. I was practically jumping up and down just watching the YouTube video. I wouldn’t have been surprised if horse and rider had exploded as they crossed the line.
It’s not often you see such completely unfettered competition. That is what adds heart to life! To see an upset like that makes me smile. Rich Strike was pure determination wrapped in excellence and something clicked such that the beast detonated during the competition. Well done!
There is glory in excellence. Don’t let clingy socialist losers tell you anything different. Shifting student loan debts or whining about masks will never get the blood pumping like watching a horse charge into Valhalla!
A.C.
P.S. There will be a second part, but you shouldn’t wait for my bullshit. Instead just watch every camera angle of the marvelous race.
Note: After Rich Strike finished completely obliterating everything in his path, it took a bit of doing to calm him down. There’s a video of that here. A few pansies and dipshits are whining that it was bad but I see it differently. From the horse’s point of view it had just run the greatest chase it would ever experience. It probably had no idea if it was in Valhalla or Kentucky. It probably had no idea the race was over. It was on an adrenaline high and it was a bit unhinged for a minute. So be it! If you watched the last 30 seconds of that race you know what the creature was doing and how hard it was trying. No horse, perhaps no being, can switch from that close to God to fat flabby American on a couch without a struggle. If you don’t get what I’m talking about, keep watching Netflix because you’ve never run on your own ragged edge and will never understand. Loser!