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Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Lester Shy posted:

Any idea what time the race actually starts? I don't know if I can make it through two more hours of pre-race nonsense.

About 6:45, I think.

Also, OP I believe that second race won by Close Hatches was the Ogden Phipps, not the Ogden Fifths.

I was very excited to see Palace Malice win again. He's a monster of a horse.

Sucrose fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jun 7, 2014

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Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009
"Nobody will ever call this horse a Secretariat.......but, he is a chestnut!"

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009
I've noticed during the triple crown races that it doesn't start until the fat man bugles.

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Grittybeard posted:

Wicked Strong isn't down with this walking stuff.

I find horse names fascinating and I have no idea why.

It's not true for Wicked Strong (or California Chrome) but a lot of times the names are a combination of or play on the sire and dam's names, which is why a lot of them are so random-sounding.

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Josh Lyman posted:

Did they just say there were 3 cases for 3 trophies? Isn't it just 1 trophy? :psyduck:

The cases go inside each other, like those Russian dolls. (Not really)

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Josh Lyman posted:

Don't they just use artificial insemination?

Nope! Natural breeding only for racehorses.

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Happy Noodle Boy posted:

Chrome got boxed in early on and that was all there is.

Nah, he could have fired at the end and he didn't, he was tiring.

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009
Excuses, excuses.

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Josh Lyman posted:

Don't they give something to the horses that helps them shed water weight right before the race?

Yes, the drug Lasix. It's hosed up and North American racing needs to clean up its act.

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Wasn't there some famous athlete who had a painting commissioned of himself as a centaur? Please tell me I'm not imagining this.

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Yes... A-Rod... hence the photoshop.

I thought it was just a play on the horse in the race named General A Rod. That's too good.

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

oldskool posted:

That it's bullshit to gently caress over his the chance at a Triple Crown by skipping the Derby & Preakness to run the Belmont on full rest against his horses that ran at least one of the two other big races in the past month.

It's not like that's not the way they've run the three races since forever. If horses can't win all three because there's more good horses competing...well, too bad? All the horses are fairly evenly matched? I don't exactly think they should rig it to make more Triple Crown winners.

Sucrose fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Jun 8, 2014

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Peanut President posted:

It is bullshit. Imagine if you can sit your starters the whole season then just show up at the World Series/Stanley Cup/Super Bowl with your main guys who have been rested all season. It's loving garbage and it's no surprise that no one watches horse racing anymore.

But the Triple Crown winners had all beaten new horses in the Belmont, with the same intervals between the three races, those horses were just that much better than the rest of the horses their age. Also if you only allowed horses that competed in all three to race, you'd have like 5 horses left in the Belmont, as every year the owners of a decent portion of the Kentucky Derby field decide afterwards "Nah, my horse really isn't up to this level of competition right now, I think I'll go somewhere softer."

And keep in mind the Triple Crown isn't really "fair" in the first place, it's only open to 3-year-olds, for one, and most horses are more developed and faster at 4. Really, if you want to see the fastest horses on dirt, you've got to wait till the Breeder's Cup Classic in the fall, it doesn't have any stupid age restrictions.

Sucrose fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jun 8, 2014

Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Chokes McGee posted:

This would be very silly and I hope it's not the point you're actually trying to make. I can't even tell anymore, I'm still reeling from that epic meltdown.

The main causes as to why we haven't had a triple crown winner are three-fold:

  • You've got what's basically child horses that are bred/trained almost exclusively for speed and not distance
  • The races are much closer together
  • The fields are absolutely gigantic

At this point, I don't think anyone's gonna get it until they change the format. Big Brown was roided out of his skull and still couldn't get across the line. (Though to be fair, it was because New York took one look at Dutrow and went "lol no.")

In my opinion the real problem is there's so many horses, and the horses are bred so very, very similarly to each other, and the speed of race horses has been dead flat for 70 years, that no horse is ever a true standout among the others. The number of foals for the racing industry had been rising and rising every year until the recession, so there's just no shortage of them, ever. They all come from practically the same bloodlines. They're (almost) all descended from Secretariat or Seattle Slew or both, multiple times over due to inbreeding. Most of them are bred specifically to run a mile to a mile-and-a-quarter on dirt, specifically.

In my opinion that's the reason for it. You churn out thousands of nearly identically-bred horses, all geared towards a handful of the same races, and the best of the best of those are going to have very similar results. Horses won triple crowns in the 70s because there weren't as many of them to compete with.

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Sucrose
Dec 9, 2009

Moktaro posted:

Looks like Team Dumbass (Stables) is blasting off again! :v:

Also yeah, it's not like anyone intentionally skips the Derby because they'd rather win the Belmont, more that they just need the extra time to hit their peak. And double lol to the notion that anyone would run just to beat his horse, he certainly didn't waste any time going from 'working class hero' to entitled jerk.

Yeah, the horse that won the Belmont (Tonalist) didn't qualify for the Kentucky Derby, he won a fairly major race a couple weeks after the Derby and then got into the Belmont based on that. At the time the Triple Crown races are run, the horses are still really young and maturing, so it wouldn't really be fair to bar horses peaking later from running in the Preakness or Belmont just because they didn't win races months before that would qualify them for the Derby.

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