drink the water with jagged laugh
Jun. 9th, 2008 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonHere's my commentary on the weather:
My brain and lungs and stomach hate the heat, but I have to admit my muscles are loving it. Various aches and pains have disappeared over the last couple of days and even my foot is doing pretty well. Also, I love Siouxsie's jacket in that clip.
We set up the house for weasels last night, it's very exciting! Also went to Ikea and bought a filing cabinet system thingy from the Effektiv line--you buy all the various components to design your own storage unit. It sucked building it in the heat, but at long last I have a filing drawer that easily opens and closes and somewhere to put all the printer junk and other odds and ends.
Been thinking a bit more about the Belmont. You really, really have to wonder if not giving Big Brown his monthly steroid between the Preakness and the Belmont made the difference. His connections wanted to prove that he didn't need the steroids, but maybe he was only a freak because of the steroids and doesn't actually have that kind of natural talent. I suppose if they keep him off the steroids, then we'll know in the future. I think they have to keep racing him to prove he has stud value, that he can run without steroids, seeing as how it strongly looks like steroid use is going to be banned (and yes, how to enforce that ban is a big question, but at the upper, expensive levels of racing, the ban will probably be effective). It's also entirely possible that he was just plain tired, and after his fractiousness at the start of the race had nothing left for the end, regardless of what chemicals might or might not have been in his system. I don't think the foot was an issue.
I read in a pre-race article that Seabiscuit had run 35 races before he arrived at the Kentucky Derby. At first I thought well, there's more proof that thoroughbreds used to be so much more robust than they are today; it's very hard to imagine any horse doing that now. OTOH, I wonder if running races used to be part of training much more than it is today, running for the experience rather than for the win. Talking again about the upper levels of racing, perhaps other training methods have replaced racing against other horses. And maybe that isn't a bad thing--maybe the babies really are being raced less often now than they were 40-50-60 years ago, and maybe they do enter their 3-y-o careers more fit as a result. Or maybe they aren't hardened enough, I don't know. I wonder if remotely reliable statistics on track injuries are available in the past--probably not, since even today's numbers are estimates based on a few tracks, not the result of scientific study. Just another facet of how complex it all is, I guess.
My partial solution to the problem of breeding horses who are bred to and are trained to run fast at a young age young without much thought for their older years is to increase the purse sizes for the races for horses 3 and over. The NTRA could promote some of those races to make them more prestigious and better known to the general public. Finally, and I think you already see this happening in at least racing media, the older horses with active careers should be treated as celebrities as much as the younger ones are. I think the last time we really saw an older horse being followed in the general media was Cigar, largely because he was breaking a record for most winnings. But there are older horses out there doing very well.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
misscalculation and I saw Brass Hat, who I believe was five at the time, win last year's MassCap, and he's still out there running winning. And the venerable Evening Attire keeps on going at 10. Of course, those two are geldings so there's not much financial incentive to retire them (Evening Attire actually refused to be retired, he hated it), but the mare Ouija Board raced until she was five or six before retiring to have babies, still earning top honors at the end of her career. So there are horses out there who can do it--it would be nice to see sportswriters pay them more attention.
My brain and lungs and stomach hate the heat, but I have to admit my muscles are loving it. Various aches and pains have disappeared over the last couple of days and even my foot is doing pretty well. Also, I love Siouxsie's jacket in that clip.
We set up the house for weasels last night, it's very exciting! Also went to Ikea and bought a filing cabinet system thingy from the Effektiv line--you buy all the various components to design your own storage unit. It sucked building it in the heat, but at long last I have a filing drawer that easily opens and closes and somewhere to put all the printer junk and other odds and ends.
Been thinking a bit more about the Belmont. You really, really have to wonder if not giving Big Brown his monthly steroid between the Preakness and the Belmont made the difference. His connections wanted to prove that he didn't need the steroids, but maybe he was only a freak because of the steroids and doesn't actually have that kind of natural talent. I suppose if they keep him off the steroids, then we'll know in the future. I think they have to keep racing him to prove he has stud value, that he can run without steroids, seeing as how it strongly looks like steroid use is going to be banned (and yes, how to enforce that ban is a big question, but at the upper, expensive levels of racing, the ban will probably be effective). It's also entirely possible that he was just plain tired, and after his fractiousness at the start of the race had nothing left for the end, regardless of what chemicals might or might not have been in his system. I don't think the foot was an issue.
I read in a pre-race article that Seabiscuit had run 35 races before he arrived at the Kentucky Derby. At first I thought well, there's more proof that thoroughbreds used to be so much more robust than they are today; it's very hard to imagine any horse doing that now. OTOH, I wonder if running races used to be part of training much more than it is today, running for the experience rather than for the win. Talking again about the upper levels of racing, perhaps other training methods have replaced racing against other horses. And maybe that isn't a bad thing--maybe the babies really are being raced less often now than they were 40-50-60 years ago, and maybe they do enter their 3-y-o careers more fit as a result. Or maybe they aren't hardened enough, I don't know. I wonder if remotely reliable statistics on track injuries are available in the past--probably not, since even today's numbers are estimates based on a few tracks, not the result of scientific study. Just another facet of how complex it all is, I guess.
My partial solution to the problem of breeding horses who are bred to and are trained to run fast at a young age young without much thought for their older years is to increase the purse sizes for the races for horses 3 and over. The NTRA could promote some of those races to make them more prestigious and better known to the general public. Finally, and I think you already see this happening in at least racing media, the older horses with active careers should be treated as celebrities as much as the younger ones are. I think the last time we really saw an older horse being followed in the general media was Cigar, largely because he was breaking a record for most winnings. But there are older horses out there doing very well.
misscalculation and I saw Brass Hat, who I believe was five at the time, win last year's MassCap, and he's still out there running winning. And the venerable Evening Attire keeps on going at 10. Of course, those two are geldings so there's not much financial incentive to retire them (Evening Attire actually refused to be retired, he hated it), but the mare Ouija Board raced until she was five or six before retiring to have babies, still earning top honors at the end of her career. So there are horses out there who can do it--it would be nice to see sportswriters pay them more attention.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-09 05:12 pm (UTC)the articles i read implied there was something actually wrong with big brown & his people were worried about another eight belles situation. a cracked hoof i believe.
i think the weasels will arrange the house the way they want when they get there.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-09 06:36 pm (UTC)I think the training methods of most sports have changed over the years, and I think you're right that workouts now substitute for some of the competition. Baseball's "spring training" used to be a time when players who let themselves get out of shape in the offseason got back in shape--now it's a rare player who takes more than a two-week vacation before resuming strength training and conditioning drills. Arguably, though, the elite performers are more consistently elite than they used to be. (Does that make sense?)
But I think the big problem is that racing is pretty much the prelude to the stud career; the gold in the purses pales next to that paid in stud fees. The fact that Big Brown's connections would retire him to stud right now says a lot...