Thoroughbred racing

There is a certain beauty to a Thoroughbred racing full steam, an animal doing what it was born to do. Every year, the best of these animals (the three-year-olds, at least) come together for the Triple Crown races. These races are an American ritual, attended live and on TV by multitudes. The horse people—the trainers, the breeders, the owners, the whole lot of them—are on their best behavior because their world is on display, and they want it to be entirely the glory of animals doing what they were born to do.

But there is more to racing than that, and a lot of it isn't pretty. In fact, the coverage of the Triple Crown could be part of the problem, a conspiracy by horse people with the willing suspension of disbelief by the fans, to cover up the way things really are.

The industry rallies around these races, and rightly perceives them as a smart way to attract new fans and to remind the old ones of why they love the sport... But there is more to marketing than putting on a good show and the industry would do well by moving beyond its parochial view about what it perceives to be "bad" news. Horse racing is too big, and too regulated, to labor under the delusion that its problems and its villains are the sort of "inside baseball" stories that the rest of the world doesn't need to worry its pretty little head about. And yet the industry is too small, evidently, to sustain a sufficiently independent reporting corps that is willing and able to consistently provide critical coverage of the reasons for the sport's decline.

The Kentucky Derby and the Slow Death of Horse Racing by Andrew Cohen is a balanced and smart look at the sport as it is, and as it should be. If you watched the Derby, or plan to watch the Preakness or the Belmont, you should know what you're looking at. It's beautiful, but it isn't the total story.
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Synchronized swimming

This may be one of the hardest Olympics sports to appreciate. It doesn't seem to relate to anything except, well, synchronized swimming. One of the contestants in this film calls it gymnastics in the water, except you don't have the ground to work with. When you see what they're doing underwater—remarkable!

It's 2012. London is coming. Watch this. It's called Sync or Swim. These are amazing athletes. You may not get through all of it (it's a real film, at real film length), but you'll appreciate what you do watch.
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Toward the understanding of the appeal of horses

Coming from a family where there is at least one rider—or maybe former rider, it's hard to say—horses have loomed a little larger for us than if they just happened to be grazing away as we drove by in a perfectly good automobile. Then again, as we edge into the Derby this weekend, we do admit a fondness for the Sport of Kings (although we regret that lately there are practices that are, to put it mildly, appalling at some less storied barns than the ones in Louisville). I fondly recall going out to Belmont a few times when the legendary Forego was racing, and watching this giant gelding come from behind—always from way behind—and win, and win, and win. Of course, people who ride, while admiring race horses, aren't that interested in them. Riders do events that are far removed from galloping around a track at top speed while the people in the stands pray that they'll win the Daily Double. They don't dislike racers; they just happen to be in a different business.

One thing you can say about riders that differentiates them from the rest of us is that they love horses. I have nothing against horses, but nothing particularly for them, either (unless they're running like Forego or winning me the Daily Double). I prefer cats. Cats are cuter than horses, for one thing, and can more easily fit on your lap. They also use a litter box, which means that they don't require any mucking of the stables. But horse people don't see it like that. Horse people look at horses and—Well, what is it that they see when they look at horses?

You are not vitally important to your horse, not really, not like you are to your dog, ever. They never figure out who you are, and why you do the silly things you do. You have to forge a relationship with your horse while knowing that, given the chance, they'd probably rather hang out with their buddies than spend time with you. But then, one day you pull up to the barn, and you realize that your horse has memorized the sound of your car, as opposed to other people's cars, and has wandered over to the gate to greet you.

Nicole Cliffe attempts to uncover the appeal of these animals that seem rather difficult to love. Unless, I guess, you already happen to love them. The article is The Horse, Explained.

Don't get us wrong, by the way. We have ridden the odd horse on occasion, and both we and the noble steeds between our legs have managed to survive the ordeal without too much permanent damage. But it takes more than riding them to understand them.

My cat, on the other hand, is perfectly content not to be ridden, and both of us are quite satisfied with the situation.

Tiger Woods

There was a period not long ago when getting a tee time on our local golf courses was about as hard as getting an invitation to sleep over at the White House. Maybe harder. And the whole reason for it was one man, Tiger Woods. Woods inspired all sorts of people to grab some golf clubs and get out there and play, and I have no idea why, because there was no way on the face of the earth that anyone he inspired could even remotely play the way he did. And he certainly wasn't the first golfer to come along and do really well, and he wasn't the first African-American to break down a sport's racial barriers, but there was something about him, a charisma in addition to his abilities, that just made us want to be like him. We knew we couldn't be, but there was no sin in trying.

When Tiger's famous personal collapse came along, his game collapsed along with it. But that was a while ago, and if Michael Weinreb, writing for Grantland, is to be believed, nobody really cares much anymore (except maybe Tiger himself). The question is, will Tiger find his game again?

Two months after Tiger won his first Masters, I went to see him play at the Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio. I was doing what everyone else was doing at the time: I was there to write about how Tiger had changed the nature of golf, about how he might potentially change the nature of race relations in America... I subscribed to the mystique of Tiger because I was young, and he was of my generation, and I had never experienced a force of nature like him before. His youth and his background and his verve seemed intelligently designed to decontaminate a sport that clung hard to outdated tradition, and I imagined (naively, perhaps) that this would translate to the outside world as well.

This is a great essay about Tiger Woods and about golf and about aging and celebrity, and the timing of the Masters weekend makes this the perfect time to read it: The Aging Tiger Woods.

A bullfighter

If, as we alluded earlier today, horse racing has fallen under scrutiny lately for the harms it causes animals, what can we say about bullfighting? The whole point is harming animals. It's been banned in some cities, beloved in others, thought of as a fine art by some and as a cruel blood sport by others. We have never attended a bullfight in person, but watched them on TV while visiting Spain, out of curiosity more than anything else, trying (unsuccessfully) to figure out the appeal. We still wonder.

An article by Andrea Aguilar about the torero José Tomás helps bring the activity into some focus:

The bullfight proved to be crude and epic. Tomás was gored three times. After each goring, he stubbornly stood up, planted himself on the ground, and fought on, never stepping back from the bull. His torso bent achingly slowly, inches from the animal, to subtly guide the charge. His calm was astounding... Some viewers accused him of being suicidal; others saw the consummate performance of Spain’s best bullfighter, one who was ready to fight steadily till the end. When a journalist asked the old former matador Esplá, “What is courage?” he answered, “It’s the spot where José Tomás stands.”

Read Death in the Afternoon.

Secretariat

Today is Eric Clapton's birthday. But say what you will about the guitarist, he never set a record in a Triple Crown race, which co-celebrant Secretariat did, twice. ("Big Red" might actually have set a record in all three, but there's controversy over the Preakness time because of a malfunction in the infield timer.) And Secretariat's records still stand.

Secretariat was born March 30, 1970. He tore up the track pretty much from the beginning of his career. When he won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness in 1973, he was poised to become the first triple crown winner in 25 years, and he caught the imagination of the whole country. People who never thought much about horses one way or another were taken by this guy. He seemed to appreciate the adulation; here's how he did at the Belmont Stakes:



That is probably the most amazing Thoroughbred race ever run. Secretariat set the record that day for the mile and a half, which is why it looks at the end as if he was the only horse to bother even showing up.

Secretariat retired at the end of his three-year-old racing career. He went on to stud, making his best success as a sire of broodmares; a lot of breeders believe that racing magic always skips a generation, and while there's no scientific proof one way or the other, they were right in Secretariat's case, on the damsire side. The horse was euthanized in 1989, when he suffered from laminitis. His passing was front page news, and he was very seriously mourned throughout the country. He was buried at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky.

Racing isn't what it used to be, unfortunately. But there are still great horses now and then, animals that somehow connect to us because of their heart and spirit. Secretariat was one of the greatest of those greats.