Time

Buddy…been doing it all wrong, I shoulda spent 40 years starin’ at a stopwatch instead of a horse, then I reckon we might as well replace the whole backside with a bunch of accountants and a metronome.

I been doing it all wrong, could have saved myself a lot of time.

“Sir, your colt posted a 59.8—unfortunately I didn't see it I was looking at my stopwatch"

My Workout Analysis 💥Boom!

I love how this evolution went. I started out in the late ‘80s at Del Mar Racetrack, just a human being watchin’ another living creature do what it was born to do. You’re thinkin’, “I oughta understand how this all works.” So you roll up your sleeves, start clockin’, start learnin’, get in the game for real. I thought I had the right idear.

And now, decades later, the lesson apparently is:“Congratulations—you should have ignored everything with a pulse and trusted the time machine.”

Ain’t that somethin’, what a maroon!

That’s the part folks don’t wanna admit: time in this game ain’t even always time. It’s where you started, where you stopped, what you counted, what you ignored, and how big a grin you had when you said it out loud, because most people have zero idea what is coming out of their pie hole in 240 characters at a time.

But Derby week rolls around —and suddenly time becomes scripture. Folks out here postin’ fractions like they came down off a mountain carved in stone tablets.

👀 “58 and change.”👀 “Bullet work.”👀 “WOW.”

WOW what, exactly? Did the horse look good? Did he do it easy? Was he draggin’ the rider or beggin’ for mercy? Nobody knows, ‘cause half these people are watchin’ the stopwatch like it’s gonna start talkin’ back to ‘em.

And that Renegade situation. Somebody sees 50 and 4 and acts like the horse just filed for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, if you actually WATCH the thing, the horse is out there cruisin’, gallopin’ out strong, basically sayin’ “I got more if you need it,” but nah—that don’t fit in a tweet.

A word to the wise, there is people out there paying people to spread bad info, to tilt them markets. Right in front of your every eyes, in black and white, 240 characters, some mercenary is taking cashola to give you bad info, knock one horse or two, prop some, so they can get their odds or even the nefarious process of trying to get a horse scratched. Its happenin' in 240 characters or less. All in the game and we bitchin about the NBA and the tankin issue? Its happening everywhere.

And then the Baffert brigade fires a fast one and folks lose their ever-lovin’ minds like it’s the first time in human history he done that.

“HE WENT FAST!”

Well I’d hope so, he’s tryin’ to win a race, in the morning.

Genius! that' it, working horses fast is more for the human connections than for the horse. It's so someone can justify for being here. Brilliant!

Getting back on track to the horse, what gets me is this idea that lookin’—really lookin—is somehow the lazy part now. Like usin’ your eyes, your experience, your feel… that’s outdated.

Nah, Detective Stopwatch on the job.

Lazy is glancin’ at a number and decidin’ you’ve solved the puzzle.

What you’re talkin’ about—watchin’, learnin’, comparin’, understandin context—that’s work. That’s the part folks skip ‘cause it takes time… ironically the very thing they’re obsessin’ over.

So no, I ain't been doin’ it wrong.

And hey, if that makes me a monkey’s uncle, then at least I knows the difference between a horse runnin’ easy in 1:02 and one survivin’ 59 flat.

These days? A whole lotta folks couldn’t tell you that difference if you handed ‘em the stopwatch and the horse, they wouldn't find the horse.