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Breeders' Cup
It's the Breeder's Cup today/this weekend, and I have to say that I am stoked.
Anyone have money on the Zenyatta to go 20-0?
Anyone have money on the Zenyatta to go 20-0?
Comments
If you only care about what the general populace cares about, here's some news: the general poplulace doesn't care about Formula One, Anime, IT, Science, Comics, or any of the other things we care about.
F1 is basically a way to take hundreds of millions from insanely rich people and get them to invest it in engineering research for everyone's benefit. Horse racing is a way to take money from the hobos at the OTB and give it to rich people so they can ride the pretty ponies. Oddly enough, OTB is losing money due to mismanagement.
Never disparage something someone else truly likes. My wife LOVES wedding shit. I don't understand why, but I never give her a hard time about it. I don't like Hockey or Formula One, but I never give YOU a hard time about it. We like racing. Most of the people I know in real life like racing, and many of them are employed in the horse industry in one form or another. My wife actually was an exercise rider at Churchill Downs for a number of years. I was a groom at a horse farm in KY for a couple of years. My father was a farrier. If you don't like racing, that's shiny, but don't give us any shit about it. Just back the fuck off and make doe eyes at Rym or whatever you do in your spare time. NYC is only a couple of hours away, and I WILL come up there and kick your little pansy ass for insulting my wife, my family, and my friends.
Hockey has too many commercials, but is otherwise perfect.
1. Breeding animals for sport is apparently somehow objectionable to you. Of course, you don't say why and you don't really say that it's objectionable in any way. You just let it hang out there as if it's somehow self evident that you've made some sort of devastating point.
This is not a legitimate criticism, You haven't enunciated an actual criticism one way or the other. Just for kicks, I'll assume that you somehow have an objection to raising animals for sport. I can tell you FIRST-FUCKING-HAND that those animals have better, more carefree lives than most people. Their every need is met, and met with the highest quality that their owners can afford. If this is a "legitimate criticism", it fails. If you have some other criticism along these lines, it fails because of very poor writing. Maybe you think the horses are treated too well. We don't know because your writing is so poor.
2. Gambling is somehow objectionable to you. Again, you don't actually say this, you just let the implication hang out there. If gambling is your problem, I have to wonder why you think Formula One and Hockey exist. The purity of the competition? "Legitimate criticism" number 2 fails.
3. This is what pisses me off. Look what you wrote. You wrote, "Horse racing is a way to take money from the hobos at the OTB and give it to rich people so they can ride the pretty ponies" This is not a legitimate criticism. This is an opinion formed from ignorance. It also characterizes the people who like racing as either (a) rich, or (b) hobos (sic - you spelled "hoboes" wrong, you idiot). That is what's insulting. It's not a legitimate criticism at all. It's a characterization of the people who like horse racing, and nothing more. "Legitimate criticism" number 3 fails.
4. Why would you care, and why would anyone care for purposes of whether horse racing is enjoyable, that OTB is losing money? It's irrelevant. Furthermore, OTB may be losing money in NY, but that's NY's problem, not racing's. Racing is not just about OTB. Churchill Downs and Keeneland are running WAY in the black. OTB in Maryland is doing just fine. "Legitimate criticism" number 4 fails.
See? You had no "legitimate criticisms" at all. What you did have was a couple of opinions formed from ignorance and a mischaracterization of a group of people who enjoy an activity. It's like if I said, "Only eurotrash fags like Formula One". That's not a legitimate criticism. That's just an insulting opinion. See how that works?
As for gambling, I actually don't have a problem with gambling itself. If people want to gamble their money, they can do so. My problem is that gambling on a sport that is endorsed by the sport makes that sport completely illegitimate. One thing that professional sports in the US have right is a harsh stance against gambling. When people have a lot of money at stake on the results, you have to assume that the sport is a fix. It doesn't mean it is, it just means that suddenly everything becomes guilty until proven innocent.
When you watch say, NFL football, you can safely assume that everyone involved including owners, players, coaches, staff, officials, etc. have no wagers on the game. If someone is found out, you get a Pete Rose situation. Thus it will be a fair competition between two teams trying their best to win. With horse racing everyone involved might have some, or even a lot, of money riding on every race. And there are people all round the world with money riding on it as well. Even if I had no problem with selective breeding, I can't have any faith that the sport is even a legitimate competition, no matter how many anti-cheating safeguards are in place, everyone involved is heavily incentivized to get around them.
As for the hobo or hoboe comment, I just look at the pomp and circumstance of say, the Kentucky Derby, and compare it to the sleazy old guys smoking cigars outside the OTB all day, every day. The stark contrast cuts through cognitive dissonance like a hot knife through butter.
Mostly I view horse racing like boxing. They have many of the same issues, like gambling. Both had their time, back in the day, and now are lingering. I think it's time for both of them to go. Don't mention MMA, that's another story entirely. I love to watch old boxing on YouTube, especially Mohammed Ali. His movements are just so majestic, much like the race horses. But now that it's the year 2010, there's no reason to continue these sports. Much like there's no reason to play Counter-Strike 1.6 or Quake 1. Don't forget them, for history's sake, but there's no need to keep playing them seriously. We have new games now.
Why the hell is this iteration of selective breeding different than any other iteration? You could argue that athletic families - like the Mannings - selectively breed their kids. Is that wrong too?
Seriously, how many individual owners do you think there are? Many "owners" these days are actually syndicates composed of as much as twenty individuals. Do you think they all get together with other syndicates of twenty individuals or more and create conspiracies to "fix" racing? Even one syndicate deciding to cheat would involve a conspiracy. That doesn't even count the other people down the line like the people I mentioned in the paragraph above. Also, there is the problem of getting the 1500-2000 pound animal to agree with your conspiracy. You have not ststaed a legitimate criticism. What you're proposing is crazy conspiracy theory developed through ignorance of how horse racing is structured.
While we're on the subject of betting, you probably think there are only straight bets and nothing else. You talked before about how you think that Formula One is "awesome" because it leads to the develpment of new automotive technology. Horse betting is pretty awesome too because it necessarily involves a lot of math. Try handicapping a race and taking into account variables like the composition of the track, the weather, the jockey, the horse's latest performance. Then try to do an exotic bet, like an exacta box. I'll bet you can't do it, because the math would be too hard for you. I'll bet that is your real beef with the gambling bit. You can't handle the math.
Once again, that's just your opinion. You don't like the people that hang out at the OTB? They scare you? They smell bad? That's personal opinion, not a legitimate criticism. It's like if I say I don't like hockey because I saw some people hanging around outside a hockey stadium and they were tooothless rednecks. See how that works? You wrote before that you like Formula One because it leads to the development of "awesome" automotive technology. Because of your ignorance of racing, you don't realize what the study of thoroughbred genetics has done for the fields of genetics, forensics, and yes, even human medicine and fields like molecular biology. Those fields are the future. The internal combustion engine is a relic of the past. There's no reason to keep toying and tinkering with the internal combustion engine. It's basically 19th century technology and we're at the point of peak oil anyway. Any racing that involves oil in any way has a limited lifespan - the amount of time we can spare the oil. I wouldn't be surprised if we see some major changes in every type of auto racing in our lifetimes - namely the waning and withering away of those "sports" for lack of fuel. I don't believe that they will weather a change-over to electric cars. If you like outdated tech that is on the way out, fine - that's your opinion. However, it's not fine when you try to dress it up as a legitimate criticism. Stick with your old-fashioned, 19th century tech with the limited lifespan. I'll opt for awesome genetics and biotech, the wave of the future.
But it doesn't matter, since horse racing is going to gradually disappear anyway. It's already most of the way there.
Also, out of curiosity, does any other country besides the US care about horse racing at all?
Seriously, though: Worldwide, I'd hazard that horse racing is easily as popular as Formula One, probably more so.
BTW, tough luck on that Formula One race-fixing this summer, since I know you're so against any type of race-fixing. This probably made you want to stop being a fan, huh?
But that particular issue wasn't a fix in the same way that taking a fall in boxing is a fix. Basically the problem in F1 is the team structure. Each team has two cars. However, there are many mostly unenforceable rules in place to prevent the two cars from collaborating or conspiring during the race. Team Ferrari legitimately won the race, however, they won by so much that they had the ability to decide which of their two drivers would come in first or second. It's really a matter of broken rules.
From the article: Now, what was it you said about horse racing? Oh, yeah. You said: Using your own criteria, you should be more critical of Formula One than horse racing.
That said, Professional horse riding is very tough on the body as well, those jockeys are like boxers with their weight control.
Imagine a horse race where the shoes matter (with 'slick' shoes a tactical choice), the saddle is changed every 35 laps, and the aerodynamics of the beast can be modified within certain guidelines specified by an association of engineers / farriers... also certain horses are banned due to their Arabian bloodlines (turbochargers) and stirrups are not allowed (driver assist)...
Apples and oranges.
Oh yeah - I'm still scratching my head over Scott's fascination with outdated technology of the past. If he doesn't get on the ball with the bio-sciences, his knowledge base will soon be obsolete. I guess that's what happens to people when they get old.
Will Scott bow out of a discussion he knows nothing about? Oh drat, this conversation I ignored was so promising.