Rags to Riches

[Worker 11811]

Just moments ago, Rags to Riches wins the Belmont!

 

The first filly to take it in 102 years!

Beats the favorite, Curlin, by a head.

 

Sorry, Curlin, old buddy... You just got beat by a girl!

[Poitr's Folly]

Does this mean that Curlin is now Hurlin??

 

 

Hmmm nah... that didn't come out right.

[Guest]

 

Oh no. That means they will be running in the Derby again soon.

 

Just goes to show what a ruthless amoral female is capable of .

 

What's the moral of the story?

Don't stand in the way of flashy chestnut fillies. Ain't she a doll? Look at her face!

 

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/images/rags-to-riches-saoaks-benoi.jpg

 

The colours btw are Micheal Tabor's. He is part of the Coolmore Stud operation in Ireland along with Magnier and JP McManus. At the moment; the Sheiks haven't much answer to them. And with fillies like that....

 

 

Actually; I think its good for racing. Thanks for sharing that worker I wouldn't have known till tomorrow.

[Worker 11811]

There have been no Triple Crown Thoroughbred winners since Affirmed took it in 1978. This is the longest dry spell in history. The previous dry spell was between 1948 and 1973 when Secretariat took the crown.

 

This win is a great shot in the arm for racing because, without a Triple Crown winner for so long, the sport is beginning to be thought of as a passtime of ultra-rich fat cats like Arabian sheiks. It brings a bit of excitement back into the game.

 

The last big race where a filly went up against a colt was when Ruffian took on Foolish pleasure in a head-to-head challenge race at Belmont in 1975. Ruffian, ahead by almost a length broke her leg at the half way mark and had to be put down.

 

A lot of people say the sport has been jinxed since that day.

 

I'm kind of hoping that this win is the thing that breaks the curse and gets horse racing back on track, so to speak.

[Guest]

I also think the accessibility of the riders....unlike ANY other sport, is a great thing. Riders like Frankie Dettorri and AP MCoy and Christophe Soumillon are real ambassadors. You couldn't go to any other sport and chit chat with the participants. The sad thing is the perception of some that it is elitist: NOTHING is further from the truth: it is the least elitist sport.

Then the fact that the horses are so beautiful and a day at the races is wonderful enjoyment on all sorts of levels is really special.

 

In America, from what I understand it has to lose it gambling image a little; and reclaim its heroes. The Bill Shoemakers and War Admiral/Sea Biscuits then its profile will improve.

 

Pop stars have their limitations in lifting spirits; they will always dissappoint. equines will always give their all. So there will always be fairy tales.

 

Lets hope people realise Rag to Riches is a super being; a dream on four legs.

 

One of the reasons steeplechasing is so popular in the UK is that it is possible for a cabbage patch horse to win the blue riband. In 1991 Nortons Coin, a small farmers horse trained rounding up sheep on a hill, won the Cheltenham Gold Cup trained by the farmer, Syril Griffiths. Someone needs to make a movie about that. Because movies about horse racing's heroes don't just do the sport the world of good; in dark times they are the movies that lift our spirits. Think National Velvet, Phar Lap, Champions (Bob Champion and Aldaniti) and Sea Biscuit.

 

I hope they one day make a movie about th great Korok. Because of our egocentric culture, we have missd out on one of the greatest fary tales.

 

A smashed up broken rider, and a horse with a leg so badly twisted and deformed it looked like a gnarled tree trunk, went off into virtual solitude together and trained in the snows and forest and healed each other . The story of Korok and Vaclav Chaloupka needs to be told; for they emerged to go on to win the most difficult steplechase in the world. The horses leg you would not believe.

 

Anyway; now is the moment of Rags and Riches. Savour her; a living dream machine.

[Worker 11811]

American horse trainers treat their animals like movie stars, nowadays.

 

They don't pasture them enough. They spend too much time in the barn. The don't get ridden hard enough in training. They baby them too much between races. They don't race them often enough. Horses are becoming weaker and more fragile by the year.

 

These animals want to run!

That's what horses do! R-U-N! RUN!

 

You go find a real race horse and walk up to its stall with a saddle and a halter in your hands and watch what happens! The horse goes NUTS! She starts pawing and neighing and kicking at the stall door. She KNOWS she's going out to the track and run! This is what makes horses happy! They are herd animals. They like to be together and they like to run as a pack. A horse race is just an extension of their natural habitat.

 

If you take a horse and lock it up in its stall and keep it there it will whither and die. It's like caging a canary and preventing it from singing. The thing might as well be dead!

 

I think that when the world saw Ruffian fall in her moment of glory, they were so shocked that they tried to protect all the other horses from the same fate. Since then, race horses have been so protected that they are becoming a dying breed.

 

We need to get horses OUTSIDE and RUN them! That's the only way we're going to see another Triple Crown winner in the near future.

 

Ruffian died doing the one thing she loved to do the most. She went out in her moment of glory. I'd say that, if a horse was able to choose the moment of its death, it would be in a race like the one between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure. It's like the way the mythological Vikings aspire to die in battle.

 

It's what horses do!