#SARATOGA RACE TRACK

[mommydearestella]

DR. RICHARD B. KATZ

OLE VENERABLE DR. DICK RESIDES IN BALLENISLES COUNTRY CLUB IN PALM BEACH GARDENS FLORIDA AND PROBABLY NYC, GREENWICH OR FORT LEE, NJ. THIS IS MY UNCLE AND I THINK HE IS A DUNCE! WHAT KIND OF A DUNCE DOESN'T CALL HIS NEPHEW BACK WHO IS THE VICTIM OF ECONOMIC TERRORISM AND TERRORISM IN GENERAL INCLUDING ATTEMPTED MURDER? WHY IN THE WORLD OVER 7 YEARS WOULD HE NOT HAVE CALLED BACK? ACTUALLY I SPOKE WITH HIS WIFE NANCY J. KATZ FROM MERRILL LYNCH MAYBE 6 YEARS AGO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MANY YEARS AND WHILE IT WAS RELATING TO A BUSINESS MATTER AND QUESTION IT WAS GOOD TO CATCH UP. I WANTED TO SPEAK WITH MY UNCLE RICHARD AS WELL TO SAY HELLO BUT SENSED A RESISTANCE ON HER PART. I WAS BEING BOMBARDED PRETTY HARD AT THE TIME BY THE ABUSERS AND IT DID HAVE AN EFFECT ON ME AT THAT TIME MUCH MORE THEN THE LAST FEW YEARS. I THINK THEY KNEW SOMETHING AND DIDN'T TELL ME AND I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND WHY. I HAVEN'T SEEN OR SPOKEN WITH THEM IN YEARS AND NEVER EVEN HAD AN ARGUMENT OR DISAGREEMENT WITH THEM. I TRIED SEVERAL TIMES OVER THE YEARS TO CALL THE DUNCE AND HE NEVER ANSWERS THE PHONE OR CALLS BACK AND NEITHER DOES IS SON GREGORY KATZ MY COUSIN. ANOTHER GENIUS. HE WAS SUCH A SWEET LITTLE BOY. I'M NOT TOO THRILLED WITH EITHER OF THEM. I THINK THEY KNEW I WAS BEING SPIED ON AND DIDN'T TELL ME FOR A REASON AS IT IS OBVIOUS TO ME THERE IS AN AWFUL LOT OF MONEY INVOLVED. WHO GOES ALONG WITH A PLAN TO SPY ON, ENGAGE IN ECONOMIC TERRORISM INVOLVING PROPERTIES WITH FEDERAL CONTRACTS ON THEM, ATTEMPTED MURDER AND SO ON? HE HAS PLENTY OF MONEY BUT CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO CALL HIS NEPHEW BACK? DR. DICK, A PALM BEACH GARDENS PHILANTHROPIST DON'T YA KNOW, HAS A NEPHEW THAT WAS ACTUALLY STARVING SOME TIMES A FEW YEARS AGO AND HOMELESS AND HE COULDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO CALL ME BACK? WHO LETS THEIR NEPHEW STARVE AND HAS THE AUDACITY TO CALL THEMSELVES A PHILANTHROPIST? A DUNCE, THAT'S WHO, AS I SEE IT. WHAT KIND OF A MORON DOES THAT? I THINK THEY KNEW THERE WAS A PLAN TO KILL ME OR CAUSE MY DEATH IN A WAY THAT AVOIDED RED FLAGS AS THREATENED EARLY ON YEARS AGO AND DIDN'T WANT TO BE ANYWHERE NEAR IT COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO TELL ME. IF ANYONE READING THIS KNOWS THEM DO YOU KNOW IF THEY EVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT THIS OR ME OR KNEW ANYTHING AND MENTIONED IT TO SOMEONE AT MERRILL LYNCH IN PALM BEACH GARDENS OR PALM BEACH OFFICE TO NANCY J. KATZ? TO ANYONE WHO WORKS AT OR RESIDES IN BALLENISLES COUNTRY CLUB? AS I WRITE THIS I AM BEING BOMBARDED WITH NOISE THAT SEEMS TO BE DIRECTED STRAIGHT AT MY RIGHT EAR MAKING A STATIC LIKE NOISE IN THE BACKGROUND OF INFLAMMATORY SPOKEN CONTENT. A BIG PART OF THIS CAMPAIGN DIRECTED AT ME HAS REPEATEDLY INCLUDED RACIAL SLURS AND GAY BASHING ON A CONSTANT BASIS IN ADDITION TO THE USE OF VOICE CLONE APPS, AND THEY USE THE TERM BODY DOUBLE OFTEN. I BELIEVE SEVERAL PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE TERRORISM DIRECTED AT ME COULD GET THE DEATH PENALTY IN COURT AS RICO ACT AND RACKETEERING APPLY. I ACTUALLY THINK A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE INCLUDING ELLA AND DENNIS FELCHER AS WELL AS HER KIDS SHOULD BE EXECUTED AND I AM NOT KIDDING.

[victoriansecret]

Evander Berry Wall was a famous sociality and fashionista in the late 19th and early 20th century, dubbed The King of the Dudes. Via wikipedia:

"Wall was a clotheshorse. He generally wore a "very extraordinary costume" such as the one pictured on the right: "a dust coat of a reddish havana brown, a suit made of a large grey shepherd plaid check; extremely wide trousers tapered at the ankle, and turned up several inches to display white spats and highly varnished shoes; a 'startling' striped shirt in red and sky blue, with very high false collar of a pattern different from the shirts, a striped vest and a widely spread stock-cravat." He was popularly credited with the possession of over 500 trousers and 5,000 neckties." ...

Wall was first proclaimed "King of the Dudes" at the resort town of Long Branch, New Jersey in the summer of 1883.

Wall was again proclaimed "King of the Dudes" in 1888 by the New York American newspaper. A journalist named Blakely Hall judged that Wall had won the "Battle of the Dudes" against Robert "Bob" Hilliard, another sartorial dude when, during the March Blizzard of 1888, he strode into a bar clad in gleaming boots of patent leather that went to his hips. Nevertheless, some historians still consider it was Hilliard who won that dude battle.

Wall won another fashion contest in August 1888, in Saratoga Springs, New York. To win a bet against John "Bet a Million" Gates, Wall changed clothes 40 times between breakfast and dinner. He appeared on the race track "in one flashy ensemble after the other until, exhausted but victorious he at last entered the ballroom of the United States Hotel in faultless evening attire."

Ever the fashion-leader, Wall is credited for having been the first person in the United States to wear a dinner jacket (tuxedo) to a ball. The white ensemble had been sent to him by the London Savile Row tailor Henry Poole & Co "to be worn for a quiet dinner at home or at an evening's entertainment at a summer resort." This was a time when tailcoat was still the rule, and Wall was immediately ordered off the floor.

Wall's financial life was not as successful as his fashion life. An ill-conceived stock-broking career and additional failures as a stable owner ended in an 1899 bankruptcy. Wall finally declared that "New York had become fit only for businessmen" and left for Paris in 1912. ... They lived in a suite in the Hotel Meurice, with a consecutive string of chow dogs named Chi-Chi or Toi-Toi. This was located conveniently near the bespoke shirtmaker Charvet, where Wall had his signature "spread eagle" collar shirts and cravats custom-made for himself and his dog. Wall always dined at the Ritz with his dog, whose collars and ties were made by Charvet in the same style and fabric as his master's.

[thewhimsyturtle]

Happy Star Wars Day and Derby Day! May the Fourth be with all the fine young padawans racing today! 💥🏇

This year's Derby field is a big one, with a full 20 horses! Our picks are Fierceness (the favorite) and Chasing Freedom, but we will also be keeping an eye on Just Steel (who will be ridden by the son of Track Phantom's trainer!) and Forever Young, Japan's best shot yet for the Derby. And of course, we can't help rooting for West Saratoga, the only gray in this year's field and the first Derby contestant for cancer-battling trainer Larry Demeritte! 🐎

Now if I can just figure out how to turn on my lightsaber, can we have a lightsaber joust after the Derby? ⭐️⚔️🏇🤔

[horsesarecreatures]

“This is an original 1960 photo of Bald Eagle and Sam the Flamingo at Hialeah Race Track. Bald Eagle was owned and bred by Captain Harry F. Guggenheim and his Cain Hoy Stable. He was by Nasrullah out of Siama, who was the 1960 Broodmare of the Year, by Tiger, a stakes winning son of Bull Dog. Bald Eagle was a full brother to One-Eyed King, the winner of the 1959 and the 1960 Donn Handicap; and a half brother to: Dead Ahead, the winner of the 1962 Roamer Handicap; and to the unraced Whistle a Tune who produced Batucada, the Mexican Champion Two Year Old Filly; the Mexican Champion Three Year Old Filly and the Two-Time Mexican Horse of the Year. Bald Eagle made 29 starts with 12 wins 5 seconds 4 thirds earning $689,556. At two in 1957 in England, he won the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes. At three in 1958 in England, Bald Eagle won: the Dante Stakes; the Craven Stakes over Nagami, the winner of the 1959 Coronation Cup, and Pinched, the winner of the 1957 Royal Lodge Stakes. He finished third in the St. James's Palace Stakes behind Major Portion and Guersillus. At four in 1959 in the United States, Bald Eagle won: the Suburban Handicap over Talent Show, the winner of the 1959 Boardwalk Handicap, and Plion, the winner of the 1959 Whitney Stakes; the Washington D. C. International Stakes over Midnight Sun, the winner of the 1959 Prix Lupin; and Tudor Era, the winner of the 1959 Hialeah Turf Cup; the Gallant Fox Handicap, while setting a new track record, over Whodunit, the winner of the 1959 Sunset Handicap, and Whitley, the winner of the 1959 Excelsior Handicap; and the Saratoga Handicap over Grey Monarch, the winner of the 1959 Eclipse Handicap, and Amerigo, the winner of the 1957 Coventry Stakes. He finished second: in the Aqueduct Handicap to Hillsdale and ahead of Tick Tock, the winner of the 1957 Sport Page Handicap; and in the Manhattan Handicap to Round Table and ahead of Coloneast, the winner of the 1958 King Philip Handicap. Bald Eagle was third in the Massachusetts Handicap behind Air Pilot and Day Court, the winner of the 1959 Hawthorne Gold Cup Handicap. At five in 1960, he won: the Washington D. C. International Stakes over Harmonizing, the winner of the 1960 Man O’ War Stakes, and Zabeg, the winner of the Russian Derby; the Gulfstream Park Handicap over Amerigo and On-and-On, the winner of the 1959 Ohio Derby, with Sword Dancer finishing fourth; the Metropolitan Handicap, while setting a new track record, over First Landing and Talent Show; the Widener Handicap, while setting a new new track record, over On-and-On and Talent Show with Sword Dancer finishing seventh; the Aqueduct Handicap, while setting a new stakes record, over Intentionally, the 1959 Champion Sprinter, and Warhead. Bald Eagle was second: in the Man o' War Stakes to Harmonizing and ahead of Sword Dancer; and in the McLennan Handicap to On-and-On and ahead of Tudor Era. He was third: in the Jockey Club Gold Cup behind Kelso and Don Poggio, the winner of the 1960 Gallant Fox Handicap; and in the Woodward Stakes behind Sword Dancer and Dotted Swiss, the winner of the 1960 Hollywood Gold Cup Handicap. Bald Eagle was named the 1960 Champion Handicap Horse. He began his stud career in Kentucky and then stood stud in France from 1971 until his death in 1977. At stud his best were: San San: the 1972 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Too Bald: the winner of the 1986 Bed O’ Roses Handicap and who was the 1986 Broodmare of the Year and the dam of Exceller and top sire Capote. Barely Once: the winner of the 1969 St. Louis Derby”

- Horse racing Legends

[silly-fox-in-sox]

https://paulickreport.com/news/triple-crown/2024-belmont-stakes-racing-festival-in-photos-a-spa-tacular-saratoga-weekend

Coglianese photo

2024 Belmont Stakes Racing Festival In Photos: A Spa-tacular Saratoga Weekend

---

The 2024 Belmont stakes festival was pretty amazing. I don't know which race I enjoyed most, so here's my favorite 10 in no particular order:

Thorpedo Anna crushed the G1 Acorn, stamping herself has the absolute best 3yo filly and possibly the best 3yo period

The 3-way grey photo in the G2 Belmont Gold Cup, where The Grey Wizard got the win and a trip to the Gr1 Melbourne Cup if they choose to accept it.

Book'em Danno got a huge win in the G1 Woody Stephens with Nutella Fella closing like a freight train to get the show money off a 9month layoff.

Didia took the G1 New York, her first G1 win in the US after scoring 3 Gr1s in her native Argentina

Dornoch's gutsy G1 Belmont win – giving his dam Puca a second Triple Crown leg after his big brother Mage won last year's G1 Kentucky Derby

Cogburn setting the track on fire, setting a new North American record for 5 1/2 furlongs by winning the G1 Jaipur in 59.8s – the first horse to run 5 1/2 furlongs in under a minute.

Idiomatic and Randomized dueling under the wire in the G1 Ogden Phipps with Pretty Mischievous right behind them in third. Love to see the distaff division really heating up.

Baby Yoda putting on one of his spectacular performances to fly home to get his first graded stakes win in the G2 True North.

National Treasure putting on a show in the G1 Met Mile.

Venti Valentine getting back to the winners circle in the Critical Eye stakes on NY bred showcase Sunday.

[porterdavis]

Why I do this

I know the numbers are a little hard to read here, but this is a spread sheet of a program I wrote to help handicap horse races. There are many variables in racing : weight, distance, track surface, jockey, trainer, just to name a few.

But coming from a financial analysis background I always felt it made more sense to reverse-engineer the process -- find the horse that did the best at earning at highest level of competition based on money won. Not earnings per start or average money won, but highest level at which the horse finished in the money. In other words, the highest and most difficult variable -- class.

In the old days they didn't have starting gates, just a tape barrier the horses would line up at. It was said when Man O' War stepped up the rest of the horses would involuntarily take a step back, knowing they were beat. That's class, and horses know it.

Anyway, above is the chart of today's 2nd at Saratoga. #5 Buttercream Babe was dismissed at the windows, but her back-class index (yellow column) prevailed and she paid $20.30. It doesn't always work this way (I'm not writing this in Tahiti) but it's nice when it does.

[ardent-heretic]

In other news.

My whole Kingdom is going bonkers because the Belmont Stakes are being raced here at Saratoga Race Course due to remodel bullcrap at Belmont Park.

I’ve never been fond of horse racing. When I was a kid my Dad had an affliction to the ponies. I remember he would take me to Arlington and Maywood in Chicago a lot. The excuse of “letting the boy watch horses “ worked on my Mom. He would put me in a seat and leave. Come and get me at the end of the day. How I wasn’t abducted as a kid is a mystery to me?

But the one thing I will never forget. He was having a bad day(as usual). He asked me to pick a horse. I grabbed a long shot and he dropped $100 on it. Came in first. Did I get a nickel or a thank you? No.

He had me pick another horse in the next race. Bet way too much on it. Horse lost. And he punched me in the head after the race. I said,”Have fun losing.” And he stopped taking me.

So I thought horse racing sucked. And now in the past 8 years or so I read about how many horses get put down on the track due to injury and I really hate it.

Right now my Kingdom is full of deals at restaurants trying to suck on the Belmont Stakes teat and I just can’t wait for this race to end to stop hearing about it.

[christinasaintmarche]

Puppy Love by Christina Saint Marche Via Flickr: This photo by Sandro represents my love for Saratoga Springs Race Track. Not only do I love the ponies I have a speacial place in my heart for the Wiener Dog Races that happen once a season. My favorite champion is a fellow named "Rudy" who always finds his way to my box (with his owner of course) to say "hello." A true champion who gets my bet each and every season.

[axelclarence]

1st time at Saratoga Race Track. Had so much fun. They had a great play space for kids. He had a blast. I didn't get a pic but it's very sandy there and he was so dirty from all his digging with his digger there. It was a fun day. No big wins but it was so nice to spend the day with both of our families.

Puppet show!! He loved it.

[mommydearestella]

Antennas with built in speakers used to harass people. I have seen these lining the tops of some parking garages and hotels in jacksonville.

[ponyconductor]

Aqueduct: Best Bets and Expert Analysis for Friday 9/14/2024

Solid return to the track Friday at Aqueduct as Mangetsu got the job done at 9/1. Let’s keep the throttle down and atone for Saratoga’s sins. Let’s Ride. Race 4: 1 1/16 Mile. (Turf) F.S.MC 40000 #4 Starlight Dancer (6/1) – The Conductor liked this filly’s 1st start routing last time. She was 3-wide and uncovered on the 1st turn and still finished well for 2nd. Starlight Dancer should improve…

[lencaeagle]

🏇 Saratoga Secrets: Unraveling "The Graveyard of Favorites" 🏇 Ever wondered why Saratoga Racecourse earned its ominous nickname? Our latest blog post dives deep into the fascinating world of handicapping at this legendary track.

Discover: • Why favorites often falter at Saratoga • Hidden factors that create thrilling upsets • Tips to spot potential dark horses

Whether you're a seasoned bettor or a curious fan, this insider's look at Saratoga's unique challenges will change how you view the races. Ready to elevate your handicapping game? Head over to our blog for the full scoop. You might just find the key to unlocking your next big win!

#SaratogaRacing #HorseRacingTips #HandicappingSecrets https://horseracingedge.blogspot.com/2024/07/experience-unrivaled-excitement-of.html

[novumtimes]

See Photos From Inside the 2024 Belmont Stakes

Summer at the Spa — a ritual nearly 200 years strong — started early in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., with the third leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, being held on Saturday for the first time at Saratoga Race Course, a revered relic where the elite and otherwise mingle, but the horses rule. Broadway, the city’s central thoroughfare, bustled. Lines for picnic tables at the track formed before dawn. A new color — Belmont green — blended with the track’s signature red-and-white trimmings. Owners, trainers, horseplayers and the cooler-toting faithful all hailed the break from tradition for the race’s 156th running. A roar rose from the old wooden grandstand as the horses entered the starting gate for the main event. It did not disappoint. The 17-1 longshot Dornoch, ridden by Luis Saez and trained by Danny Gargan, held off Mindframe and Sierra Leone for a stunning victory. Jockeys line the fountain outside the Marylou Whitney entrance. Source link via The Novum Times

[deehollowaywrites]

Readers Up #20: On Swift Horses

I decided to post some of my old newsletter, since it's been in a holding pattern for some time now--some favorites, now and then, as I turn over whether I want to revive it or take it in some different direction. This one is about On Swift Horses by Shannon Pufahl.

...

From the liner notes to my ongoing collaborative art concept with Jessica Chapel, The Secret Life of the American Racegoer: “[The term terrain vague] made me think of you and the Stretch and racetracks as potential spaces and places within racetracks that have form but no longer function.”

Can I get a holler from my fellow psychogeographers? For place obsessives like myself, racetracks are not only a treasure trove of living (sometimes calcified) history, but also the map to the hoard. Depending on your aims, a map is often more fascinating than gold. Consider Suffolk Downs, now defunct; imagine a day-drunk Bostonian lecturing all who will listen on the wave-like dips and hills of the concrete, his hand moving sinuously to mimic the rushed construction job. Consider the Stretch at Saratoga, supplanting much-mourned sections X-Z, and in the process attempting to streamline the Spa experience into something marketable and above all moneymaking. Consider Hollywood Park, not just defunct but destroyed: Citation’s million-dollar win has no basis in material reality, only in memory and media--notoriously unreliable formats. 

American racing resists popular narrative, and American narratives typically have little interest in racing unless a bow-wrapped happily-ever-after is available. It’s hard to imagine Seabiscuit getting greenlit these days; anyway, the true proving ground of any medium is ubiquity, not singularity. In this way, Shannon Pufahl’s debut novel On Swift Horses arrived as a stunning gust of fresh air. The Del Mar of the mid-1950s is both central and tangential to the book, at one point the fulcrum on which the plot turns and elsewhere an everyday backdrop. Not all secrets are illicit, and protagonist Muriel’s gradual absorption into the racetrack embraces the notion of the private life, the fundamentally solitary nature of railbirds, the quiet bestowed on the solo racegoer among a packed apron of screaming bettors. To a reader not born to the track, the way Muriel learns and moves feels like a gift. The eavesdropping, the cadence mimicked after people who know what they’re about have moved out of earshot; the matching of gleaned knowledge to physical evidence, the half-fearful thrill of the first brush through the turnstile, first drink, first bet. Muriel’s experience in 1956 mirrors mine in 2015, the discovery of a gate to forbidden country and then the discovery that there are no gatekeepers. 

The first time is a transgression, Pufahl writes. The second is a strategy. Her novel is many things, but above all a story of essential gambles, sleight of hand and betting against the house and handicapping from every angle and snatching information both hidden and plain as day, all of it necessary to queer women and men in the not-so-distant past. Protagonist Julius’s perspective is an inverse of Muriel’s, yet both halves of the story employ gambles and the peculiar codes of cards and horses as analogy, poetry, and plot drivers in pursuit of the true self. If we can learn the new language of the racing form, what other languages might be out there for the speaking? Muriel’s bildungsroman refers to itself throughout: the cloaked bywords used by queer men in San Francisco call back to the horsemen’s vocabulary she picks up at her waitressing job. The celebratory kiss she receives from a fellow female horseplayer at the track foretells her affair with a lone homesteading woman neighbor. As in another classic of belated coming-of-age, On Swift Horses is concerned not only with the moment of awakening, but the reality that we never stop awakening. 

A treasure map leads from point A to the final X, marking the spot of reward. Julius and Muriel’s stories are deeply concerned with maps, as Julius drifts across borders in search of his fled beloved and Muriel follows the inadvertent trail laid by the horsemen who frequent her workplace. All great California writing is place-writing; Didion and Babitz, Steinbeck and Solnit all understood the state as a map continually rewritten, the sort of Borgesian map that is to scale with its uncharted emotional territory. Julius breaks his own ground, seeding the earth from Nevada to California to Mexico with clues that he hopes might come back to him. Muriel’s map is written across bodies--her own and her husband’s, those of the men who dance with her in the Chester Hotel and the women whose lives portend something her own might become-- and its treasures are those which hide in plain sight. Wealth is knowledge, in love as in racing, passed between those with shared language. As we say in libraries, sometimes seriously, information wants to be free. The flow of love in a cellar where Julius meets a man he knows and doesn’t nestles against the flow of luck in which Muriel swims at Del Mar. The physical evidence of men’s love shows itself in graffiti, names and hearts, while luck appears in green stacks with near-endless utility. To be recognized, to have words to describe experience, is to be rich. The culmination of Julius and Muriel’s treasure-seeking is a life writ larger, more real, closer to exact, nearer the divine.

Seeing the racetrack and its denizens serve a larger story is rewarding, as Pufahl is concerned less with one singular big-ticket affair than with the mosaic and continuous. I’ll always err on the side of the mundane, versus the stellar. Seabiscuit was one in a million, Citation the first to crack a million, but around the country races go on every day. Racing is a micro-sport which is at its most beneficent and rich when experienced through the macro. When you get down to it, luck can’t be bucked; the joy of handicapping is in its endless permutations, or maybe in fooling yourself, but in either case there is always something larger at work, impassive as evolution. The great joy of Saratoga sections X-Z was their formlessness, their potential to be shaped to each racegoer’s inclinations, a terra nullius waiting for its cartographers. On Swift Horses is an echo of American racetracks as civic and integral, a love letter to finding new words for old impressions, groundbreaking, intimate, and hopeful.

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: Belmont Stakes Will Move to Saratoga for 2024 by Victor Mather

By Victor Mather Other races normally run at Belmont Park, on Long Island, will move to Aqueduct, in Queens, as the track undergoes significant renovations. Published: December 6, 2023 at 02:21PM from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/BW9koES via IFTTT

[porterdavis]

The thoroughbred industry is about to lose me. It assuredly won't miss me but I think I'll be one of the last people out the door, and it will miss the tens of thousands ahead of me.

I've been watching the World Championships of athletics from Bucharest the last few days as well as horse racing in the US and Canada. It occurs to me that if there were even one death of an athlete in track and field there would be an uproar and immediate investigations.

Today two horses broke down and had to be euthanised in full view of the 50,000 fans at Saratoga. The biggest TV audience of the year for the track went to commercial and upon return was treated to hummina-hummina from the talking heads. There is never an honest discussion of why this is happening.

Thoroughbred racehorses are among the best cared-for and cosseted animals on the planet. Rubbed, bathed, fed, exercised on a regular basis, And then they get to do what they love to do -- race against each other. Watch any herd of horses in the wild for ten minutes and you'll be treated to a spontaneous race as two or more sprint across the field.

Unfortunately, there's too much money involved in purses these days, and horse breeding has moved from prizing soundness to seeking speed. The goal has evolved from breeding durable horses that can compete for years to brilliant speedsters that can capture the imagination and enough money in 10 or so races that they can be retired to the breeding shed after just one or two years of racing.

Thoroughbreds' legs are smaller than a human's, yet support repeated impact of a 1200-lb animal at 30 MPH. It's a miracle there aren't more catastrophic injuries. Add in racing surfaces that are difficult and expensive to maintain and the problems are magnified.

The problems get worse. As the saying goes, horses eat every day, so the pressure to keep them racing and hopefully paying their way is great. The inevitable muscle sprains, sore feet, gastric issues, and a panoply of other ailments are medicated and masked so as to keep the horse racing. This is an entirely separate issue from the 'juicing' of horses, which is sadly also a huge factor. Lance Armstrong could make his own decisions. Horses can't.

The ultimate answer is to eliminate all medication while in training. If a horse needs medical intervention, remove him from competition until he is sound and healthy. Horses in training should get only oats, hay, and water. (OK, carrots and peppermints are alright).

One thing is certain. Racing can't continue down this path.