| cal828 |
05-06-2018 04:07 PM |
I wrote this about the race as a sort of racing journal entry. Clearly, I have way too much time on my hands. :zz::D
5/6/2018
It is the day after the Kentucky Derby. I usually spend many hours leading up to the derby studying the contenders and reading what others, in the know, say about the derby and even sometimes listening to commentary on the radio show, At The Races with Steve Byk. It is something to fill the time on my hands and one of the things I do for fun. There is also a website called Derby Trail (the creation of the aforementioned Mr. Byk) where race fans can exchange their ideas and picks and sometimes insults and put forth their notions about the Derby and other races and horse racing in general and compete for prizes. There is no money involved in these contests. It is just for small prizes like baseball caps and t-shirts and bragging rights.
The Derby as an event was as entertaining as ever and one of the big bugaboos of racing was turned on its head because it was won by a horse that defied one of the oldest dictums of racing and that was that no horse has won the race in more than a century that had not raced as a 2 year old. It is what is known as the Curse of Apollo, Apollo being the last horse that accomplished that feat. To add to the confusion, there was another rule albeit a much newer one and that is that the race has never been won by a horse that won the United Arab Emirates Derby in Dubai. That race has only existed since the year 2000 explaining its relative infancy compared to the sinister sounding Curse. Interestingly, two of the major contenders, if not the major contenders, were Justify, a horse unraced as a two year old and having had only 3 races as a 3 year old and Mendelssohn the UAE Champion, a horse that won that race in a total blowout by some 18 and half lengths in record time. Too add to the confusion, the race has 20 contenders and therefore the slamming, stumbling, sometimes sandwiching of contenders between other contenders was magnified much more so than most ordinary races and the race is longer than most horses will ever run, therefore requiring more stamina than most races and is run before a crowd of 157 thousand humans that are screaming and shouting things at the top of their lungs that would probably, were it known, get them excommunicated or at least ostracized less than 24 hours later and to add to all that, the race was run on a wet, sloppy racetrack.
Justify, the unlikely winner according to some, was the winner in spite of all the adversity and history of the race defying the old laws that were undoubtedly handed down to Colonel Clark atop Mount Sinai, and Mendelssohn, the great champion that was, in the minds of many, will be returning to Ireland his “curse” having been upheld by the gods of racing. Both horses were trained by world class trainers, but one of those trainers may well be the greatest trainer of horses for dirt track racing that the world has ever known and so there we have it, a fitting denouement for the Kentucky Derby of 2018.
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