Fear
Let me tell y'all something about myself as a horseplayer. Something that might explain why I can be such a pain in the ass, both to myself and to the people around me.
It's fear.
There, I said it.
Fear is my motivation. Fear of not succeeding. Fear of falling short. Fear of putting in all that work and not being good enough when it matters most.
Now, we're all wired differently, and I'm not suggesting my way is the right way. But if I'm being candid, fear has been the driving force behind much of what I've accomplished in my life.
I can be the hardest SOB on myself when I don't succeed. And, unfortunately, I have a bad habit of extending that same courtesy to other people.
That's where the trouble starts.
We're not all that different from the horses we handicap. Some are laid-back, take everything in stride, and go about their business without a care in the world. Others run on nervous energy. Some need to be challenged, some need reassurance, and others will run around in circles all afternoon without accomplishing a damn thing.
Handicappers are no different.
The desire to excel brings out different responses in all of us. How we handle the pressure, the expectations, and the fear of failure manifests itself in different ways. Some people get calmer when the heat is on. Others get rattled. And then there's me, who sometimes reacts like somebody just lit a fire under my backside.
I am driven to the point of no return when it comes to failing. Failure is not an option. That's the mentality I carry into handicapping, business, and just about everything else I do.
Is it screwed up? Probably.
Am I a jackass sometimes? Absolutely.
But it's also helped me accomplish things I might never have attempted otherwise. It has pushed me to work harder, dig deeper, and challenge myself when it would have been a whole lot easier to accept the circumstances and move on.
The problem is that what works for me doesn't necessarily work for everybody else.
I learned that lesson the hard way when I was 17 years old.
Back in high school, I had the talent to play soccer. The ability was there, but my confidence, my timidness, and my own fear were getting in the way. I'd come off a strong junior year that was marred by a persistent knee injury, and I was trying to figure out where I stood heading into the next season.
I'll never forget sitting in math class. My coach, Lynn Chapman, taught the class before mine, and I remember what he said to me like it happened yesterday.
Coach Chapman knew how to push my buttons... he did it once, wound me up and let me go, As a young kid left me twisting in the wind with this incredible drive to suceed.
"Bruno, I'm not sure you're the starter, and I don't know if you're going to make the team."
Well, that got my attention.
Suddenly, something clicked. I had to prove him wrong. I took those words and put them right in front of me. Every time I needed motivation, there it was. I wasn't going to let somebody else decide what I could or couldn't accomplish.
That fear of not being good enough turned into fuel.
I went into overdrive.
I need to always prove everyone wrong. Overachieving was my motto.
And I learned something that has stayed with me ever since: Fear can be a hell of a motivator when you know how to use it.
But there's a catch. Not everybody responds to fear the way I do.
Take a horse like Salahudin, the Baffert two-year-old. He's a laid-back character. Nothing seems to bother him. He goes about his business at his own pace, never looking as though he's in any particular hurry to get anywhere.
Well, that might not be the pace Bob Baffert wants to see. Maybe he wants to wake the horse up a little, get him more engaged, and see what's underneath that easygoing exterior.
So you push him.
Maybe Salahudin responds to the challenge. Maybe somebody lights that fire, and he starts doing things people didn't think he could do.
Or maybe you push too hard and get the opposite result.
That's the challenge with horses. Knowing when to push, when to back off, and when to let the talent take over.
It's the same damn thing with people.
Yesterday, I had one of those moments when you look in the mirror and realize the problem might not be the other guy.
My friend Tom Lenberg is a phenomenal handicapper. We're talking top-five-caliber talent in this country. The guy knows what he's doing. He's got his own approach, his own rhythm, and his own way of getting the job done.
And what did I do?
I pulled out my own stupid Jedi mind trick, trying to motivate him.
Because that's what I do. I push. I challenge. I expect people to dig deeper because that's what I demand of myself.
I figured everybody needed a little kick in the ass now and then.
Except Tom doesn't need me to be his Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The guy is doing just fine on his own.
And that was the moment I realized something. My need to motivate him wasn't necessarily about what he needed. It was about what I needed.
I was projecting my own fears, my own insecurities, and my own obsessive need to succeed onto somebody who operates completely differently from me.
Tom is cool, calm, and collected. He's got a temperament I wish I had as a handicapper. He doesn't need to be on top of himself every minute of the day, questioning everything, pushing himself to the brink.
Meanwhile, I'm over here acting like the fate of Western civilization depends on whether I get the next race right.
That's the difference between us.
What drives Tom to succeed is different from what drives me. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I needed that reminder.
Because handicapping is a battle. It's a battle of urges, experience, discipline, and attitude. It's a battle against the races, against the opinions of others, and, more than anything, against yourself.
I've got an aggressive attitude in everything I do. I expect a lot from myself, and sometimes I expect too much from the people around me.
It's fucked up, if we're being honest.
But each and every one of us got here by a different road. We carry different baggage. We have different insecurities. We respond to pressure in different ways.
Thus, when someone trolls me or knocks me, they are doing me a favor, they are pushing, they think its an insult, to me, it fuels me.
Some people need somebody in their corner telling them they can do it.
Others need somebody telling them they're not good enough.
And some people just need everybody to leave them the hell alone so they can get on with their business.
The trick is knowing which is which.
As we approach this weekend, I can feel that familiar fear creeping in. The big days always bring it out. I ask myself the same questions.
Am I going to be good enough?
Am I going to see what others miss?
Will the hours of work, the analysis, the visual information, and the experience translate into something useful for the people counting on us?
Am I going to be a winner?
That fear never completely disappears. You can have years of experience behind you, and when the big moment arrives, there's still that little voice asking whether you're up to the task.
The difference now is that I've learned to rely on the Process.
One day at a time. One race at a time. One horse at a time.
Do the work. Analyze the race. Study the horses. Trust what you've learned. Separate the meaningful information from the noise, the rhetoric, and the bullshit.
Don't get caught up in what somebody says. Don't chase somebody else's opinion. Don't let the pressure of the moment convince you to abandon the very process that got you here.
That's how I intend to conquer my fears, or try to.
Not by trying to be the loudest guy in the room. Not by playing psychological games with my friends. And certainly not by pretending I have all the answers.
By doing the work and putting out sound information backed by sound visual analysis.
Because at the end of the day, that's what matters.
I still have that 17-year-old kid inside me who remembers coach Chapman saying he might not make the team. I still have that need to prove something, that desire to show up when it matters, that fear of not being good enough.
And maybe I always will.
The difference is that I'm beginning to understand that I don't have to make everybody else carry that same burden.
Tom doesn't need my fears. He doesn't need my motivation. He doesn't need me riding him like a jockey trying to make up six lengths in the final furlong.
He needs to be Tom.
And I need to be Bruno.
We both have our own ways of getting to the same destination.
I just happen to take the scenic route through hell and back before I get there.
So here's my question for y'all.
What drives you?
Is it fear of failure? The desire to win? The satisfaction of knowing you've done the work and figured something out that others missed?
Win or lose.
Are you the kind of person who thrives when somebody challenges you, or are you better off when everybody gets out of your way?
Do you need that fire lit under you, or do you perform best when you're left alone to trust your own ability?
I've spent a lifetime believing that if you want something badly enough, you push harder, work longer, and refuse to accept anything less than success.
I'm still that guy.
But maybe there's a little wisdom in learning that everybody doesn't need to operate that way.
Fear is a hell of a motivator. It's gotten me through plenty of doors that might otherwise have remained closed.
But knowing how to harness that fear, without forcing it on everybody else, might be the next lesson I need to learn.
And believe me, at my age, I could stand to learn a few more.
Now, wha motivates you, what moves you to be better and succeed.
Fear might be there, but the Process is what gets the job done.
I want to wish Tom Lenberg a great Breeders Cup Betting Challenge, and that he does it his way, because he is doing something right, and he fear may not be his crutch.
For You, out there, use your own Jedi Tricks and succeed.
