Dream Derby: Week 2
Episode 3: In which LeAnn Rimes pays a visits and spends more time on screen than any of the horses.
We begin with a look back at episode two. No one can believe that Jewel picked Shoot Yeah over Kool Smoke. “I was stunned,” Deanna says as we see shots from the match race and Jewel’s departure. Poor Jewel. She was so enthusiastic, so … wait, she’s gone, we don’t have to trouble ourselves with thinking about her anymore.
No, we don’t need to remember Jewel when there are 10 other contestants still in the game, scheming and plotting and making alliances. In one corner, we have Chris, LaVar, and Dean, and in another, Aaron and Susan. Heated words are tossed about: “It’s a firing squad!” says one, and another prophesies that “something’s going to happen and we’re going to slapped around!” Ooh. Maybe things will get exciting this week.
Maybe after the owner’s challenge. In this one, the players have to answer questions such as how many horses played Seabiscuit, how long is a pommel horse, by how many lengths did Secretariat win the Belmont Stakes, with whoever answering correctly getting to eliminate another player until only one is left — Sara, the New Jersey swimsuit model. “Ohmigod,” she says. I’m amazed too. This is the woman who said she wanted to be on the show because she wanted to learn how to ride horses. Sara chooses Tara C., LaVar, and Eric to go to the mansion with her. As the show goes to a commercial break, we’re teased with hot tub scenes. We haven’t seen a horse yet.
Back from commercial, and the owners are in a jacuzzi. “It was hot,” says LaVar. “There were boobs.” The girls eat grapes and giggle. It’s so hedonistic! This must be what real racehorse owners do in their free time.
Out in the barn, there’s no relaxing in hot bubbly water for the stablehands as trainer Alex Hassinger puts them to work, washing bandages and feed tubs and mucking stalls. I’m transported back to memories of last summer….
Despite being in the barn, we barely see any horses.
What we get instead are scenes of players second guessing themselves (Sara) and confronting each other (Deanna, Susan). There’s too much of this and very little that’s compelling. Susan is called loud, Aaron says Deanna’s underwear is so tight it’s cutting off her circulation, yada yada. I realize other reality shows employ similar scenes, but somehow they don’t seem so tedious. Why is that?
At some point, the arguing stops, and the stablehands are brought into a fancy room to watch an eating race. LeAnn Rimes, who sings the show’s theme, visits. She and the stablehands shake hands, exchange pleasantries, and then she’s off to meet the owners, but not before our host Steve explains the stablehand’s challenge: They must choose one of the owners, who are having lunch at the track, as the first to finish an 8oz. steak. They also get to bet on their choice. Exciting.
Steve and LeAnn visit the owners. She spends less time with them than she did with the stablehands. There’s an exchange about a commercial she made — “The Dr. Pepper commercial …” says Eric. “Diet Dr. Pepper,” LeAnn corrects him. “I liked that,” he tells her. “Enjoy yourselves,” she says to all of them and leaves. This visit may have been the most pointless of all celebrity drop-bys ever in the history of television.
Lunch is served to the owners. We’re watching people eat. We are not watching horses do anything.
Up in the fancy room, the stablehands are cheering on their picks. Eric eats his vegetables first, prompting Chris to yell, “Get off the potato, Eric!” Somehow the stablehands keep the cheering up for 12 minutes. Eric’s potato-eating slows him down, LaVar finishes his steak first, and it’s Deanna who wins the challenge. “Now, I can relax,” she says, because she’s feeling “exhausted” after being put on the spot for two match races in a row.
The stablehands are brought to the owners’ table and another round of incomprehensible and boring betting commences. This time, it’s the owners betting on which stablehands picked them to win the eating race. It hits me: the reason we’ve seen very little of the horses, and hardly anything having to do with handicapping, but lots and lots of betting, is because that’s what the producers think horseracing is — it’s all about the gambling. What a misunderstanding.
The match race approaches. In the mansion, Eric tells Sara he wants the challenge, which seems to relieve Sara, who looks a little freaked out at the thought of having to either pick a horse or another contestant to take on that risk. In the stable, Susan declares herself Deanna’s “biggest competitor,” and says she’d be crazy not pick her for the race.
The players enter the chandelier room, lining up neatly in their best clothes. “As soon as I had the power, I went into screw the people mode,” Deanna voiceovers. Sara chooses Eric, just as he asked. Devious Deanna strikes for Susan — by picking Aaron. After Hassinger tells the players there are six scratches, Eric chooses Free to Please, a son of the late California stallion Free House, while Aaron goes for Sharp as a Fox, one of the two fillies in the barn.
The players make their bets, and the horses run. Free to Please wins. There is one neat thing in this race, and that’s the camera shots from the horses’ heads. Seeing the track from that angle was better than the watching the owners play in the jacuzzi. It’s the kind of thing — the horse head camera, that is — that I’d like there to be more of in the show.
Anyway, Aaron leaves, Susan cries, and vows that when she has the power, she’s going after Deanna. Interesting. Hey, where did the horses go?
