Guest Post: Conflicted Feelings About the Kentucky Derby

Hello from Kentucky!

As last year’s guest blogger did such an atrocious job (yes you Justin), I decided to try my hand at exploring the rich traditions of the Kentucky Derby. I also know nothing about blogging so I stole Justin from Lexington's idea to write in letter form as well. I won't be stealing anything else from him. I don't think he has anything else of value.

In all honesty, I have vast knowledge about any large number of things. The Derby isn't one. But I do know how I feel about the beauty and the ugliness of it all. Round these parts, horse racing is serious business!  Trust me when I tell you that nothing in Kentucky is more important than horses. Except college basketball. And Bourbon. How bout them Wildcats!! Doesn't Mila Kunis look hot in all those Jim Beam ads?

But I digress. Which happens frequently.

In all honesty, the horse racing industry comes with a shit load of problems. Even simple folks like me know that it’s, well...shady. I mean, it’s almost unforgivable. In the name of tradition, race horses are routinely abused. Sure, the ones you see running in the Derby are retired to a beautiful farm in the hills surrounding Lexington, put out to stud, to live in a sexual horse heaven.

But what about the average guy, uh horse? Sadly, if he's lucky, he'll be sold to a farm somewhere and become the "dream come true" for some child. If he isn't lucky, and most aren't, he will suffer with untold injuries from his racing days and be "put out of his misery" when the next horse comes along. He could be sent to a glue factory. Glue factory? Is that true?

We here in Kentucky tend to live in a fantasy world about the true life of a horse. We imagine that these sweet, sweet animals are all going to that perfect little farm in the country. We have to think this way. To truly pull the blinds back would mean giving up our traditions and heritage. So, we refuse to address it. Arguing with a Kentucky native (which I am not, but my 35 yrs here makes me a Kentuckian at heart) about the cruelties of the horse industry is akin to challenging our "We Are College Basketball" stance. It simply isn't done.

So, this weekend as you enjoy the rich heritage and tradition of the Kentucky Derby, the Mint Juleps, the hats, the bourbon, that are on display for all to see, remember that for every Derby horse you see, there are 10,000 who will be abused. We here in Kentucky will stay oblivious to the truth. 

The "Greatest Two Minutes in Sports" would be a great way to bring a national discussion to the forefront. It won't though. I have a secret belief that the REAL issue is tied to rich men and their need to see that the best horse gets the most action in his second career. Stud fees.

Enjoy the Derby!!!

Shirley Terrell
@srtgrace

Justin's Defense of Horse Racing

On Tuesday Jayman posted about horse racing's problems with abuse and corruption. Today, Justin in Lexington posts his defense of horse racing.

Office of @_JustinHenry_

123 Thoroughbred Ave

Lexington, Great Commonwealth of KY

Good Evening? Morning? I’m Not Sure,

Let me preface this by saying I am not a writer nor a blogger.  My name is Justin, I don’t know how to blog so I decided to write my rebuttal to Jay in a formal letter.  This is not important but I feel that I’m pseudo blogging so I can say that.  Also, I am in no way representative of anybody but myself.

I know Jay via Twitter.  If I remember correctly we both replied to the same re-tweet or something like that.  I’m not in love with Jay so it’s not really a milestone in my life, but I think that’s what happened.  Honestly I don’t read his blog regularly.  But I don’t do a lot of things regularly.  One thing I do like to do is argue.  Jay does too.

I knew in advance that he didn’t like the horse racing industry.  I myself am a Kentucky native.  So naturally I took exception to that.  But I always thought Jay just likes to find random shit to be outraged about like drones so I thought I’d take him up on the argument.  So here we are.

Also, I had no idea Jay was a “Libertarian” until today.   Seriously.  Anyways, on to the rebuttal.

I used to bet a lot.  Not on horses but on professional and collegiate sports.  It was a time when I worked second shift.  So when I got off work it was west coast basketball that was on due to the fact that it was late.  Next thing you know, I know everything about Washington and UCLA and how I feel they shoot too many jump shots.  This is also the time of Adam Morrison.

I hated him.  I hated his long hair, his emotion (he cried a lot), also hated Gonzaga in general.  So naturally I like to bet against him and Gonzaga because I hate the program.  Their games were always televised and they were a high profile program. 

I would bet against the spread, stupid Morrison would go crazy and Gonzaga would beat the spread.  I think Gonzaga will win and stupid hippy Morrison would miss a meaningless free throw.  I remember one night where I bet with him and he did miss a meaningless free throw and St. Mary’s (I believe) threw up a meaningless heave that went in at the buzzer to kill the spread.   I lost. 

That’s the nature of gambling, it’s a gamble.  Jay’s friend was kind of right, something wasn’t right.  He lost a bet, and something wasn’t right.  That feeling he felt was that he lost.  It’s easy to blame a “fix”.  Some people, including me and Jay’s friend, are just bad gamblers.

Except for poker, I challenge any of you people to join a table me at a poker table.

Moving on.

How is your Johnsonville Sausage made?  We all know it’s delicious.  But, what about poor Wilbur?  This guy is delicious.  How many of these guys go on to greener pastures?  Pretty sure none, unless they are your pet they end up in your Johnsonville Sausage or what the hell other pizza topping  Matt is eating at the time. 

Now don’t get me wrong.  I am a Kentucky guy so it’s natural for me to come off like this, I get that.  I will say that I don’t hunt.  I’m not a gun guy, which I’m now learning Jay must be because he is a “libertarian”.   I don’t have a problem with hunting, just personally don’t get it and would never do it.  I do love animals.

This is the point where I disappoint Jay because I really won’t debate him on how the ugly side of this industry can be at some times.  Reason being is that I feel if I’m going to take that leap then next thing you know I’m debating crazy PETA people about my love for taco’s and I have absolutely no interest in that.

I won’t provide specific studies about the industries economic impact on my fellow Kentuckians because I’m too lazy and numbers confuse me.  I do know that it is immense and generates a lot of money in a state that doesn’t have much.  How do I know?  I live in the Horse Capital of the World.

Again, I do love animals, notably horses.  But I like people more and feeding families is important.  Now if you happen to provide some numbers that the industry isn’t incredibly helpful to my fellow Kentuckians (which I doubt you can) then I probably still wouldn’t care.

I will finish by noting that Jay did not enjoy the track for the most part.  Which, is perfectly fine.  I don’t know what a race track in Arkansas is like.   I do, however, and invite Jay to Keeneland for one meet and I will show him around.  If the scenery, atmosphere and excitement doesn’t change his mind, than we will just have to agree to disagree.   We’ve done it before, no biggie.

Regards,

@_JustinHenry_

P.S. Enjoy the Derby, get drunk and have fun.  I know I will. If you really like it keep up with rest of the Triple Crown.

Horse Racing is all Animal Abuse and Corruption

Hola! A few years back I had a coworker who had just turned 21. Like all just turned 21 year old, he wanted to do two things immediately. 1. Buy alcohol legally and 2. Gamble. So, he decided to take his girlfriend to Hot Springs, AR to go to the horse races. After he got back I asked him how he did and he told me that he pretty much lost all his money. Then he turned to me with a very confused look on his face and said “You know, several times when it looked like someone was cruising to victory, they would actually pull up and end up finishing out of the money.”

Imagine that. Horseracing … FIXED!? Say it isn’t so! Next you’ll tell me that boxing is fixed too.

I have been to the horse races several times. I’ve never really won any money at them because I don’t know

dick about it. I always buy the advice sheets, check the racing report in the paper and then take wild guesses as to which horse might win. But, I made a day of it, ate nachos, hot dogs, corned beef sandwiches and drank lots of beer to make up for the lack of winning. I enjoyed the races but there was always something about the whole thing that was kind of … unseemly.

Anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to vices like drinking, smoking, sex and gambling, my libertarian side comes out. Do I know that gambling preys on the poor and that horse tracks (and especially dog tracks) attract a “bad element?” And do I know that in so many places horse tracks (and especially dog tracks) are surrounded by drug houses, strip clubs and adult “theaters?” Yes, and I don’t care.

The problem with horse racing is its level of corruption and the treatment of the horses. Anytime you have a sport that is mostly rich people competing and there is enormous amounts of money at stake, you’re gonna have a lot of cheating and corruption. I think as a society we’ve just accepted this kind of thing, but we really shouldn’t because it’s the greed and corruption that causes the abuse of the animals.

Owners and trainers shoot the horses up with all kinds ofdrugs and growth hormones so they can race them earlier and more often than they should. You might claim NFL, MLB and NBA guys are shooting up with HGH too and that’s true. But, humans have the ability to decide for themselves to take the risk of HGH and the oppoeable thumbs to give themselves the shot. Horses don’t have that. They have to just take it. Hundreds of racehorses are severely injured or killed while racing each year.

When you watch the Kentucky Derby you’ll see all kinds of video of retired racehorses living out their

twilight years in Horse Heaven. They get put out to stud and just run free in the bluegrass fields and have sex all day every day. But for every retired racehorse that is living that life hundreds, if not thousands are simply run until they completely breakdown and are then shipped off to the glue factory.

“These horses are born to run?” True, but they’re not born to race. They’re trained to race and that training is brutal. They start them before their bones have fully formed, shoot them full of drugs and run them hard very early and often. Once they are no longer any use to the owners, the horses are then disposed of. The lucky ones are placed at a retired horse park and do live good lives. But, the vast majority of them are sold off to other people who continue to try to make money off racing them (either legally or in illegal match races) or are sold off to people who will transport them to Canada, Mexico or Asia to be slaughtered.

It’s possible for someone to go to the races and enjoy the sport and the betting all that great stuff, but we all need to remember what we’re also supporting when we do so.

Jayman3768@gmail.com
Facebook.com/Jayman68
@Jayman_IWS

*On Thursday good friend of IWS Radio, Justin in Lexington will guest post here in support of horseracing.

The Fix is In ... Or Not

Hola decent and honest folks out there! So, over the last week or so we have all had the chance to witness three of the most corrupt things in the sports world one right after the other. Well, three things sports fans are all convinced are fixed. We had the NBA Draft Lottery (and the NBA playoffs), Horse Racing (Triple Crown contender doesn’t run at Belmont) and Boxing (Manny Pacquaio v Tim Bradley).

Okay, so the NBA Draft Lottery has been alleged to be fixed ever since the NY Knicks mysteriously snagged the #1 overall pick in 1985 and got the rights to Patrick Ewing. It was a very fortuitous turn of events for the Knicks. And that seems to have continued right up to present day as the last two years have gone exactly the way you would expect them to go if the Draft Lottery was fixed.

The way the Draft Lottery works is every team that didn’t make the playoffs gets a certain number of ping pong balls depending on where they finish the season in the rankings. So, the worst team gets the most ping pong balls and a statistical advantage. But, since they do the drawing of the ping pong balls in private, it appears that the NBA is just find with the whole “it’s fixed” conspiracy thing, so I’ll let them enjoy it and say that YES, THE NBA DRAFT LOTTERY IS FIXED.

Next we had The Belmont. A few years ago, a coworker of mine decided to spend his 21st birthday down at Hot Springs, AR so he could go to the horse races. When he got back I asked him if he had fun and he looked at me and said “Yeah, but it was a little strange.” “Oh really?” I replied. “It actually seemed like the jockey was pulling up when his horse was in the lead and about to win. I couldn’t figure out why.”

Fascinating huh? I always love it when young, sheltered people are exposed to the realities of the world. The only institutions in this country more corrupt than Horse Racing are Boxing and Congress. But, let’s remember that “I’ll Have Another” didn’t run at Belmont. That’s because it wasn’t about fixing the race as much as it was about pure GREED! Oh, I’m sorry, it was about preserving I’ll Have Another’s value in the stud horse market. If he ran and lost, his value as a stud would have fallen way too much to make it worth it to risk running. So, someone kicked the horse in the shin and said “Damn, he’s hurt. I guess he can’t go this weekend.”

And finally we’ve got the Pacquaio/Bradley fight. Once Pac-Man finally took the ring, and he made us all wait for quite a while, he beat young Mr. Bradley like a rented mule for at least the first half of the fight and then coasted home to what seemed like a very easy victory. Well, it seemed that way to all the honest folks around. Turns out the judges were watching a different fight and gave the win to Bradley on a split decision.

Well immediately everyone started in with the “IT WAS FIXED!” conspiracies. And I admit that my first reaction was the same. But, after thinking about it I realized that we’re leaving something out. We’re not accounting for something that is every bit as American as fixing things and greed. That’s right kids we might just have a case of good old fashioned incompetence. The judges might just suck.

I think we often times scream that things are “fixed” when they don’t go the way we think they should, or the way they obviously should because we actually prefer that to greed and incompetence. Fixing a sporting event (or election or game show or reality competition etc) actually takes skill and smarts. And, with that whole American Exceptionalism thing we have going, we just prefer to pretend that even when something is wrong or corrupt, at least it took some good old fashioned American Knowhow and hard work to get it done.

Jayman
Jayman3768@gmail.com
@Jayman_IWS