What’s Wrong with the Kentucky Derby?

Like millions of Americans, I’ll invest a couple minutes of time on Saturday to watch a horse race.  And, like many of those millions, it will be one of perhaps only three horse races I’ll watch all year, even though Iowa has a horse track in Prairie Meadows.  But I watch for the horses; for most of those millions, the horses have little or nothing to do with the spectacle.

Seabiscuit and Native Dancer are two of the most famous thoroughbreds who never won the Derby, thus never competed for a Triple Crown.  Seabiscuit’s accomplishments came in the depths of the Depression, as he became an equine celebrity athlete and hero for his time; undersized and with an awkward gait, he rose from being a claiming horse to, after recovering from a suspensory ligament injury which nearly ended his career, winning the Santa Anita Derby in his final race.

Native Dancer only lost one race in his career, but that one loss was the Kentucky Derby.  Native Dancer ran in the early 1950s, as television experimented with sports broadcasting.  The big gray became an emblem for the age, a dominant runner who found ways to win every race, save one.  Unlike Seabiscuit, who retired to life as a cow pony, Native Dancer had a long career standing at stud, leaving a lasting legacy, including his grandson, Northern Dancer, who did win the Kentucky Derby.

Thoroughbred racing is a rich man’s game.  That’s one problem I have with the Derby: the spectacle is broadcast worldwide as network video crews cast a loving eye on the conspicuous consumption of a wealthy elite.  We are somehow supposed to accept that their social event is one we are all expected to identify with, and defer to.  The most obscene example of how social class and privilege are imbricated with Derby tradition came a couple of years ago, as an NBC crew showed a wealthy businessman wager $100,000 in cash.  His horse lost.  When Native Dancer ran, the dirty business of cleaning his stalls, grooming and tacking him, walking him out after races, fell onto the shoulders of blacks who were all but invisible to the TV cameras of the day.  Today, the work which no rich man or woman would stoop to do falls upon the shoulders of Hispanic immigrants.

Laura Hillebrand’s “Seabiscuit: An American Legend” showed how Seabiscuit broke those class barriers.  Physically, he was an unprepossessing horse: only 15 hands high, with a short tail which barely touched his hocks, and a “fly-swatter” gait where his forehoof flayed out to the side at a gallop.  Even with a bloodline which included Man ‘o’ War, Seabiscuit had a dreary early career, and was discovered by trainer Tom Smith running in the bottom rung of thoroughbred racing.  But Seabiscuit had heart, a quality which no breeding chart can document, and he became a favorite of ordinary bettors and race fans.  He was a horse for the masses.  Seabiscuit was seven years old when he won the “Hundred Grander” race at Santa Anita, a goal which had eluded him, his owner, his trainer, and his jockeys.  At that age, modern thoroughbreds have been standing at stud for four years.

As you should infer, that’s my other big problem with the Derby.  The race is not really about the horses.  When Barbaro had his catastrophic breakdown in the 2006 Preakness, he garnered national sympathy and support.  Overlooked, however, was how his breakdown is common in thoroughbred racing.  As you watch the Derby Saturday, remember that horses are not fully grown until they are five years old.  Every runner on the track is still developing, and those horses receive the care that they do because they are the elite of their breed.  At smaller tracks across the country, where there is no spectacle, just gamblers trying their luck at the pari-mutuel windows or at the casinos, older horses run under analgesics to deaden the pain of aging ligaments and bones to capture one more purse for owners who do not see the horse as a living creature, but only as an asset to be exploited until death or sale.

Will was a retired runner who served his new owner well as a jumper.  Will was smart enough to get himself into trouble: as I once led my buddy, Rhett Butler, to the paddock gate, Will followed.  I chided Will as I thought he tried to take a bite out of Rhett’s neck.  Next thing I knew, Rhett’s halter fell to the ground, Rhett walked off, and Will stood there, looking first at the halter on the ground, then at me.  Will’s owner had to put him down because his bad back meant he could no longer be ridden.  Now she rides Liam, who greets me while he stands in the aisle as he’s being tacked up with the soft brown eyes of the horse, perked ears, and an inquisitive muzzle.  Liam, too, is a retired runner.

I won’t criticize the thoroughbred industry, for I’ve known retired runners, and ridden warmbloods with thoroughbred ancestry.  I joked that one such horse, Arthur, a Percheron/thoroughbred mix, had been bred in hopes of getting the Percheron’s steady temperament with the thoroughbred’s grace.  What we got was the thoroughbred’s finicky outlook and the Percheron’s clunky physique.  The vast majority of thoroughbred foals born each year never see the track: most wind up as pleasure horses who learn to be steady companions and partners for their riders.

As you watch the Derby Saturday, be aware of what is deliberately lost in the spectacular celebration of wealth and privilege.  Hard-working men and women prepare those animals to race, and care for them every day: those folks almost never are on-camera.  The horses are living creatures, independent thinkers who are not like us, but who are at the mercy of humans who do not see them as living beings, but as assets to be milked.  Remember that it is not the elite runners on television who touch the most lives, but the retired racers like Will and Liam whom you will never see.

That is what’s wrong with the Kentucky Derby.