We used to have a lot of commenters who were very interested in the horses. Not sure if we do anymore. But here is an open thread for you all just to be safe.
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We used to have a lot of commenters who were very interested in the horses. Not sure if we do anymore. But here is an open thread for you all just to be safe.
Comments are closed.
gogol's wife
I like horses.
Just felt sorry for this thread.
JPL
My know nothing opinion is Creator. Then we can spend the evening singing The Old Grey Mare.
quakerinabasement
Take me down, little Susie…
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Is this the one where Rafalca dances?
Mike J
At least the two horses in the wreck weren’t hurt.
Mnemosyne
I’ll have to get my mom’s opinion — she picked American Pharoah at the Derby last year, so clearly she has some kind of instinct.
My new hair color must look good, because the teenage clerks at Target were just a skosh nicer today.
p.a.
I buried Giacomo a while back by luck, but no real interest in the sport. To this day however I can remember where I was, watching Secretariat destroy the Belmont field.
Doug R
Clinton on the nose
Ruemara
I had the vegan fries & the organic caramel corn, but I don’t feel any more enlightened. This festival is a fraud!
Davis X. Machina
It was Smarty Jones what did it…
ThresherK
I have no opinion.
My most lasting Derby memory is being out at a gastropub where the staff was dressed for the occasion: Men in arm garters and bow ties, women in fancy dresses and fancier hats.
One male server in his 20s was a bit chubby and the outfit made him seem an entrant in a Fatty Arbuckle look-alike contest. A female bartender was wearing a hat with a little model of a bird on it, which was also wearing a hat. I brought my wife (a real hat babe if ever there was one) over to see it and it made my wife’s evening.
Helen
I’m in Dublin. It’s 10:45pm; just got in from dinner. They are showing the derby live in all of the bars. They do love their ponies here. And their betting!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: What color did you go with, I went with black two weeks ago.
lgerard
I was going to throw a few Tubmans on Mo Tom, and play him on top of the 2,3,5,8. but I threw my back out in the garden and had to retire to bed with a heating pad instead.
Now I hope Mo Tom finishes next to last beating only Nyquist whose owner is one of the scummiest mortgage fraud and payday lender blights on the universe
Mnemosyne
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Same base color, made the purple highlights wider and a little brighter. I don’t want to have to bleach my hair to get the really vivid purple, but these are pretty nice.
jharp
I bet $20 on Lani. Currently a 28 to 1.
Last time I won the derby was Alysheba. 1987. A 13 to 1.
I’m due.
lgerard
@jharp:
He is my second choice, but his odd training schedule is a bit off putting. His races in Japan were great, and he is a Tappit
CaseyL
I used to follow racing so closely I knew the horses’ bloodlines. That was a long time ago. When Barbaro died, it killed a lot of the joy for me.
But I do love them, the horses. I love their stories, their athleticism and courage, and all the storybook stuff. I love being at a track and feeling the thunder as they gallop past. It’s all about the horses for me, so I still tune in for the Triple Crown races.
So here I am, watching.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@p.a.: That was a memorable stretch run, wasn’t it? Unforgettable. (But I have no idea where I was at the time. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
Love watching these races; hate the interminable pre-race coverage. I like watching the walk to the gate and then the race. Probably starts about now.
bk
My son went to college in New Orleans and is a huge Saints fan, so he asked me to put down some money today at the Bellagio on two longshots that are running in the Derby that are owned by the family that owns the Saints. Neither of them was on my radar.
Mike Adamson
Throwing out Mohaymen’s last out and looking forward to the 12-1 payout.
AdamK
Mint juleps are awful. Such a sad waste of whiskey.
CaseyL
I don’t root for anyone, too afraid of jinxing them :)
Mike J
@BillinGlendaleCA:
You’ll never go back.
TaMara (HFG)
I love watching the horses run, it’s so beautiful. But I worked at a track in college and I also rescued a retired greyhound. Both those experiences really color how I look at racing animals for money. But I still tune in for the Derby and often the Preakness. Love watching them run.
kdaug
>>> Shout out to BJ on Garrison Keeler’s show just now.
Damnit, kids, get the plastic covers back on the couch
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I’m at a Derby party drinking my 2nd mint julep in a frozen silver mint julep cup with a sprig of mint made by a native of Louisville. Wheeeee!!!!!
Schlemazel Khan
So balloon juice just got mentioned on A Prairie Home Companion!
Which one of you guys is Garrison Kiellor?
Iowa Old Lady
@Schlemazel Khan: What did he say? Or was it an audience member who mentioned us?
Mike J
I’ve got two bucks on Tesco Burger.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@kdaug:
Everyone sit up straight and smile!
TaMara (HFG)
@kdaug: I’m sorry…what? Be kind. Rewind.
Mnemosyne
@kdaug:
Crap, now the whole country knows that Bill and I dye our hair.
evodevo
It’s a sopping track – bet on a “mudder”
ThresherK
I was listening earlier in the car but now watching Tigres and Cruz Azul, and waiting for the horsey thing. Keillor mentioned this place?
Mnemosyne
Debating what to wear to a “Beer and Brat(wurst)” fundraiser tonight. Complicating factors: I will be meeting at least a few of G’s coworkers, and it looks like it may rain, strange as that is for So Cal.
Baud
@Schlemazel Khan:
It took a while, but the Baud! 2016! message is getting out there. The future looks bright.
debbie
I don’t remember there being so many grey horses in the Derby before.
Suzanne
Mr. Suzanne hates horse racing. He always says that the race is successful if the athlete doesn’t have to be euthanized. Lots of fucked-up jokes about “murder tents” and what it would be like if they had those in any other sport.
But I love watching them, and I REALLY love Johnny Weir in his hat.
p.a.
@evodevo: “His mother was a mudder?”
“His father was a mudder!”
Schlemazel Khan
@Iowa Old Lady:
It was part of a sketch, they were mentioning a bunch of web sites. FB, snap chat, places like that
CaseyL
@debbie: My grandmother (from whom I get my love of the sport) refused to bet on gray horses, no matter what. She said they were bad luck. I don’t remember what her reasons were.
p.a.
@Mnemosyne: lederhosen
phantomist
$100 on Brody’s Cause to show.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Baud: What’s the frequency,
KennethBaud?JPL
@Schlemazel Khan: Tell me more..
Mnemosyne
I’m not sure how I feel about the ads on the mobile site. They’re a good width on the iPad and I can scroll past them easily, but they’re slightly too big on the iPhone. Do I have fat fingers, or do others feel the same?
Baud
I think the new ads are slowing down the mobile site.
reality-based (the original, not the troll)
well, nothing against american Phaoah, but my heart will always belong to California Chrome – who wuz robbed when the no-hoper stepped on him in the Belmont.l
Also, he’s sound enough to still be racing at 5 years old – unlike all the weak-boned Mr. Prospecor horses out there. AND he just stomped the world’s best at the Dubai World Cup, world’s richest race.
and for the same reason I loved seattle slew (a 22k yearling) – chrome has unfashionable breeding, too many white socks, and the heart of a lion. I’m picking him for the breeder’s cup right now!
the Derby? well, I love Native Dancer breeding, there’s $ greys – pick one!
Mnemosyne
@p.a.:
Forgot to shave my legs this morning.
Emma
@Suzanne: I was at Keeneland racetrack for one of the Spring races one year and in the middle of a claiming race a horse stumbled and broke its leg. Everything got really quiet and then the ambulance showed up and they put up the walls to block the view. I don’t remember much about it because I was looking away from the track at the people in the room with me. There were grown men who looked like they were going to cry.
PurpleGirl
@Ruemara: What festival are you?
This reminds me I have to look up a NYC street fair schedule.
Mnemosyne
@Schlemazel Khan:
Maybe we’ll move up to the 9,000’s in popularity now!
p.a.
This bar’s wifi sucks
Schlemazel Khan
@ThresherK:
It wasn’t much of a mention just aname drop but it stuck out because the others mentioned were all social media I think. BJ wouldn’t just be something you would have expected
CaseyL
Nyquist it is! Blazing time, too.
Baud
@Schlemazel Khan:
Um…Balloon Juice nothing like those sites, being, you know, 10,000th in the list of most popular websites.
Mike J
@Baud:
I read that Hillary spent $20k on radio ads in Guam. If PHC had mentioned us a week sooner you could have had a shot in the caucus there.
CaseyL
Ugh. I hate these immediately-after interviews. Give the guys a chance to catch their breath!
Turning TV off.
Schlemazel Khan
@p.a.:
Baud mentioned amd I am seeing poor response on my phone so are you on mobile?
lgerard
ugh….the worst of all outcomes
Schlemazel Khan
@Baud:
That was part of why it was surprising
SiubhanDuinne
I was in a blind draw pool and picked the worst horse (72-1). If I had had any say, I would have picked Ccreator, so it really wouldn’t have ended any differently for me. I’m out five bucks regardless.
Baud
@Schlemazel Khan: Is the audio on the web?
WaterGirl
@kdaug: Really? What did he say?never mind, I see that the question has been answered.
khead
@debbie:
You are not alone. It’s been 15 years.
Also, I think I want Exaggerator in the next two rounds.
kdaug
Yeah, it was a sketch about a guy distracted by social media. Named off a bunch of sites (all real), and our little jackal refuge made the list.
Now we have to look like we’re paying attention
p.a.
@Schlemazel Khan: yes mobile but it’s the bar. *hic*
Mike J
And go watch the Howard speech.
debbie
@khead:
Another couple yards and he’d have had it!
AdamK
@CaseyL: I hear tell the old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be.
Miss Bianca
@p.a.: Me, too. Just shows what a state I’ve been in lately that I didn’t even remember it was Derby Day today.
Schlemazel Khan
@Baud:
I probably is. The mention comes around the 20 minute mark of the first hour. I believe it is Brad Paisley who says it.
It really was not a big deal, just sort of surprising
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mnemosyne:
Not too bad on my Moto X—about half the screen height—but some pages now take forever to load completely and I have been getting error messages about WebGL (presumably used with some of the ads).
Baud
@Schlemazel Khan:
If I had been listening to that while driving, I might have crashed my car.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You don’t think you might have just assumed you were hallucinating, as usual? :-)
Baud
@WaterGirl:
My hallucinations are usually about . . . other things.
ThresherK
@kdaug: I’m not resting until we make Says You!, NPR’s best game show.
J R in WV
@Emma:
The worst feeling in the world is to have to put down a horse – especially a horse that you have known well. Harder than a beloved dog, even. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
ETA: And I did cry. It was hard. I called a neighbor to bring down a back hoe to bury her, and he said, “You have to do it before I get there, you know?” and I said, “I do know, and I will.” And I did…
Emma
@J R in WV: I learned it that day. Also I learned how it affected even those that had no direct link to horse, trainer, or owner. Everyone was shocked.You have all my sympathies.
Miss Bianca
@J R in WV: What you describe is one of the things I’ve dreaded about the thought of getting another horse.
JanieM
Talking about horses and sadness: Ruffian.
debbie
@Baud:
Here’s the show’s schedule. You can listen live online, but they don’t do podcasts due to permissions issues with the artists on their show.
Here, the show runs on Saturday night @ 6pm, and then it’s rerun on Sunday morning @10am.
Elie
@J R in WV:
You have my complete heart… I would grieve deeply. Somethin about a horse — its being such a sympathetic being that is and has emotions. I have ridden them, but never owned or had enough exposure — I always wanted more an always felt a bond to them with my heart. I can totally understand therefore — how it must be to lose such a friend.
On the upside, watching them do what they do so naturally — race — is amazing! My heart takes flight and joins all those through history who have loved the horse and appreciated its beauty and spirit. I know I am one of those folks… I watch every major race of the triple crown — I don’t care who wins particularly. I want to see the muscles and beauty and deep need to race …. to fly like something from mythology…
I also love the big work horses. Up here in the NW the Percherons are black as coal and noble — regally drawing wagons along with other like draft horses, the Clydesdales. Prancing, necks back and arched. The Percherons are kept out of the sun right before they are shown, I’m told, so you only get that inky black coat with no reddening from the sun. They are gentle as they are huge. I remember seeing a little 3 or four year old girl asleep on the back of a huge Percheron — and seeing the Clydesdales show with their little new colts or fillies at the Lynden County Fair …..
They do races with four and six hitches pulling a wagon in a ring… pretty cool …
Tripod
I’d guess the Triple Crown winner had a deleterious effect on interest. Once that got done, what’s in it for your average viewer? The industry is in terminal decline, tracks are closing every year, or being propped up by casino wagering. Long time since it was the sport of agrarian American, when most everybody had a horse, and animal husbandry allowed you to get to town.
Ultimately the handful of top tier events will fade with the collapse of the infrastructure beneath it.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Hmm, aren’t those called fantasies? :-)
JanieM
I’ve had almost no experience with horses (a few rides in a lifetime), but I too watch the Triple Crown races each year and am in awe of the athleticism and beauty of the animals. Jane Smiley has written a couple of books that flesh out that feeling with some knowledge and a different kind of enjoyment: Horse Heaven (a novel, one of my all-time favorites) and A Year at the Races (non-fiction).
Miss Bianca
@JanieM: Oh, let us not speak of Ruffian! Now there is a horse death that moved me to disbelief and tears. Did everything the boys could do, and then some, and made it look easy. I identified with that horse. Not that I was that way, but that I wished to be that way.
Miss Bianca
@Elie: My favorite horse right now is an Irish hunter, mostly Thoroughbred but with that bit of draft horse thrown into the mix for steadiness of temper and endurance in the field…7/8-1/8 is the mix, usually.
Bonnie
@debbie: I agree. The most I have ever seen is in this race. I love dapple gray horses; but, they seldom win. Only Gato del Sol (Cat of the Sun) in 1982. How could a horse with such a great name NOT win?! Still, if I could have bet, I would have put money down on all three gray/grey horses.
Elie
@Miss Bianca:
Cool! I don’t know enough but wish that I knew more… I love horses (so general a comment but so true)
Elie
@JanieM:
I hear ya on Horse Heaven! One of the best books on horses — and people that I have read!
Jacel
@JanieM: Recently I’ve wanted to read again “Laughing In The Hills” by Bill Barich. The original New Yorker piece about a nearby racetrack, Golden Gate Fields, was astonishingly engaging about a subject I thought I had little interest.
JGabriel
I always think of the KY Derby as the premature ejaculation of sporting events – weeks of build-up, then it’s over in like 3 minutes. Go to the bathroom at the wrong moment, and you miss the whole thing.
TriassicSands
@p.a.:
The greatest athletic performance ever…by man or beast.
TriassicSands
Exaggerator just needed a little longer race and he would have won. Sadly for him, the Triple Crown has no such race. The Preakness is shorter and the Belmont is much longer. The way Nyquist finished, I have to wonder about him and the Belmont’s monstrous mile-and-a-half.
Psych1
I’m an ex-pat from Da Bronx living 1/2 time, for the past 20 years, in Cappadocia (land of horses) Turkey. When I first got here many of my neighbors had horses, now they have cars and trucks. There are still farmers with horses and wagons but most of the horses you see are for tourists to ride in the valleys.
But Turkey does have race tracks and when their racing days are over horses are not put out to pasture. Unlike Sicily, where they eat them, ex race horses here end their lives pulling wagons and plows. It is horrible!!
low-tech cyclist
Is the Kentucky Derby still decadent and depraved? I don’t pay much attention any more.
Horse racing as a sport really killed itself off, IMHO, by sending the colts that did well in the Triple Crown races off to stud at the end of their 3 year old season, (For reasons I’ve never really understood, a horse was worth more at stud than on the track, even in what should have theoretically been his best years as a race horse.) That meant the casual fan only got to root for a horse for a few months, then the next year, there was a whole new set of horses. Imagine if a major-league sport reconstituted all of its teams every year – fans would get a bit fed up with the whole thing.
Paul in KY
Went to derby. My 23rd. Had a great time. Fine, happy crowd. Did not run into 1 asshole the whole day (which is unusual for Derby). Had 100 WP on Nyquist, and 20 WPS on Divisidero in race before. Went in with $500 and came out with $750 (bet every race & lost my share).
Paul in KY
@Mike Adamson: Mike, I was on him too, until Nyquist kicked his ass. Here is my ‘Sheik’ theory: Every year the Sheik evals his horses. Regardless of price he paid, he makes his determination on which are best & so on. He is a good judge of talent. The best stay for racing in Europe, the rest come here.
One of his horses will have to win Derby, before I drop another quid on them. I did not bet Moyhamen this year.
Paul in KY
@phantomist: I had $50 on him to show, so don’t feel so bad :-)
Paul in KY
@Bonnie: Spectacular Bid was a dappled grey horse.