JC / Railbird

Kentucky Derby

Internal Dialogue

In the two years since Barbaro broke down in the Preakness Stakes, there have been seven breakdowns on racing’s biggest days: Barbaro, Fleet Indian, Pine Island, Mending Fences, George Washington, Chelokee, and Eight Belles.
That’s seven breakdowns on national television, but I didn’t need the boob tube to bring me the visuals. I saw all of them live.
A lot of people reach a breaking point when it comes to seeing animals suffer in this sport. Some haven’t watched a race since Ruffian or Go For Wand or Barbaro. For others, maybe Eight Belles was the last straw.
I’ll be back for more, though. I’m Baltimore bound in a week and looking forward to the race. Does that make me a bad person?
Part of me thinks I should feel worse than I do about this, and another part tells me that I mourned and that it’s time to move on. Is that callous?
I love this game, and as I saw Eight Belles go still on the track I loved that horse.
I tell myself that in heaven, she runs in a meadow with no pain. Horses gather around her, and she regales them with stories of how she took on the boys in the world’s greatest race.
In Heaven, she is peers with the bottom-level claimer who died in a slaughterhouse. They all run, and God help me, they all forgive us for what we put them through.

Posted in Racing on May 5, 2008 / Tagged Kentucky Derby / 7 comments

Just the Numbers

Kentucky Derby contenders, graphed according to their Derby and prep race BSFs. Big Brown, in blue here, floats above the competition. Click to view larger image.

Listed in order of finish; KD-B=Derby BSF, PR-B=previous BSF, D+/-=difference between KD-B and PR-B.
The final time for the Kentucky Derby was 2:01.82, for which Big Brown was given a Beyer speed figure of 109 (about average for the Derby). Fractions for the race break down into times of :23.30, :23.74, :24.10, :25.42, and :25.26. According to Formulator, Big Brown’s splits were :23.57, :23.94, :24.30, :24.75, and :25.26. Hardly spectacular — no records were threatened — but good enough for this field.
[Note: Data used in the graph is in the table above (or can be viewed here, along with past Derby BSFs). Line color = finish = horse. The rise and fall of each line follows the rise and fall of each horse’s prep campaign and ends with the Derby. Graph goes from left to right (or from Derby BSF back through prep races), as does the data in the table.]

Posted in Racing on May 4, 2008 / Tagged Kentucky Derby / 5 comments

Sadness

Big Brown was ultra impressive, but tough to get too excited after what happened to Eight Belles.

Posted in Racing on May 3, 2008 / Tagged Kentucky Derby / 4 comments