a horse, of course

Everything’s coming up horse. Saturday we went to Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, in Louisville; Sunday we went to a horse park and museum in Lexington; Monday we went for a tour of a horse farm.

Churchill Downs was the highlight. I explained to HGR: “The actual Derby was a few weeks ago but there’s a small race today. We’re going to watch it.”

“Oh,” he said. “Pathetic.”

We actually watched several races, since we rented a box for the afternoon. The races ran every half hour, each with a different category: two-year-old maiden fillies, four-year-olds who started under a certain price, etc. The race booklet had stats and records of each horse’s past races to assist bettors. I liked the shorthand descriptions of their past races: “dueled, up for 2nd.” “awk[ward] st[art], no menace.” “rail bid, finished strong.” “much the best, handily.”

Dad tried betting but couldn’t get the electronic betting machines to accept his card. There were in-person betting stations, but they were next to the food stalls and we got distracted. Oh well. The energy of the crowd was electric. In one of the races, a horse surged from way behind for a last-second win, and I later heard a guy in the food court crowing to his friends: “We won! We won!!”

(As an aside, horse names are incredible. I’m keeping the race booklet. Between the booklet and the museum, I got chaser names for years. I already named one of Veyron’s pups Fusaichi Pegasus, and I might use Iron Liege for a future Zhimabao pup.)

The next day was rainy and cold and miserable, and we spent a lot of time inside the horse museum, which contained a detailed history of horses from prehistory to the present day. It was very extensive. I quickly reached my quota of horse history, but the museum just kept going and going. I liked the little historical dioramas, though. They had expertly designed minifigs with every simulated cloth crease perfectly in place. Also, obviously, nice horses (with tiny perfect bridles and wire reins).

There were also horse stables on the park grounds, but horses are not that interesting when cooped up in small pens. There were a bunch of sleepy-eyed docile fellows in the Breeds Barn, and then a few former race winners in the Hall of Champions with big signs THESE HORSES BITE, DO NOT PET. That’s the champion spirit.

Sunday the weather was nice again, so we had a good visit to Mill Ridge Farm, a commercial breeding farm. They have two stallions for stud: Oscar Performance, with a stud fee of $12K, and their new boy Aloha West, with a stud fee of $10K. These boys are VIPs. Each one has a large field to himself with plenty of clover and wild strawberries. Oscar has the tour guide well trained. He moseyed over and she gave him carrots. Then he started munching on the fence post and she was like STOP IT STOP IT and gave him more carrots. He’s living it up. You can see bite marks on the fence posts all around his enclosure.

I wonder how much inbreeding there is in horse heritages. It didn’t seem politic to ask. worm calls it “winbreeding.” I later looked up the Kentucky Derby on Wikipedia and learned:

All of the [Kentucky Derby winners] can be traced back to the three foundational sires, with Godolphin Arabian the ancestor of 7 winners, Byerley Turk the ancestor of 11 winners, and Darley Arabian is the ancestor of 130 winners, including all winners since 1938.

The page goes on to describe the main branches of each foundational sire line. It’s fun to think how horse experts just know all of this, the same way we know Faelor and Sunfall.