There is a lot of controversy surrounding horse racing, but that is not what I am interested in for the purposes of this.
A few years ago a friend of mine and I went to Lexington, Ky just a few days before the start of the racing season. We went to Churchill Downs where the Kentucky Derby is held, and it was impressive, but heavy on security.
We also went to Keeneland, which at that time was much more open. We ate in the track kitchen with the trainers and exercisers and grooms and touts. It was great. And it was very early morning, very early, the lights were still on, and it was beautiful even without the horses.
Keeneland, early in the morning
Then the horses start coming out onto the track, and the trainers standing around, and a few owners. Trainers tend to kind of stand apart from each other, leaning on the rail or standing up in the stands.
The horses come out singly, and in groups, some with ponies and some without, the riders are exercise riders not usually the jockeys. Now and then you see one horse really being run, but generally it seemed to me that they were a lot more leisurely. It was clear the horses WANTED to run more, but this was warm up, and
they were moving which was better than not moving, standing in a stall, watching the others...
The horses work on the dirt track, and also on the turf track. Some horses never run on dirt, others never run on turf, and of course we all know some horses do best in horrible, sloppy, muddy, rainslick conditions.
But not today.
Today the sun is out and this is not a race.
But at the end of the workout, it's back to the stable, and their grooms, and their stablemate cats and goats and ponies, and a quiet evening....
Good luck to all of them: may none make a wrong step as the Baffert filly did this morning.
