Keeneland Rumble

(Satirical)

People have lost their ever-loving minds, and I don’t mean just in the normal ways we’ve all gotten accustomed to. They’ve lost all sense of their pocketbooks, sure, but apparently they’ve also misplaced their civil duties. You know: be kind to one another, treat your fellow man with dignity, maybe don’t turn a horse auction into a goddamn pay-per-view event. Instead, we’ve got threats of a Battle Royale breaking out in the auction area at a sales facility near you.

You know, if something ain't made to poke fun at then it aint no fun.......

Mike Repole is over there playing Bruno Sammartino, apparently prepared to body-slam anybody who tries to run him up. Which is rich, because we all know Mike Repole would never do such a thing to another human being. No, sir. Mike wants to remind us he's from Queens, and all I can think its the old joke, 'you know the only two things that comes from queens are....." But he says he is just a peaceful horse buyer who happens to look like he’s one bid away from putting somebody through a folding table.

Then you’ve got Terry Finley. Terry Finley, as everybody knows, has the shiniest head in American racing, is like Jimmy Snuka, ready with the sleeper hold from the top rope. That man’s scalp catches September sunlight like a heliport. But don’t let the shine fool you—Terry is no cupcake. He’s a former Army Officer, he knows how to tussle, he knows how to take care of himself, and he’s got an entire army of clients standing around him. If things go sideways, Terry doesn’t have an entourage; he has a battalion, some, however, have had way too many cheeseburgers but they can be good roadblocks until the medic arrives.

And Todd Pletcher will apparently do anything for Repole, like Bret the Hitman Hart, he, wearing a Gulfstream Park hat into the middle of this mess That’s loyalty right there. When 'The Mouth of The South Jimmy Hart called “Todd, I need you to come to Lexington dressed like a walking advertisement for Gulfstream Park, and be the hitman” you put on the damn hat and go.

So what started out as a horse sale has now become a Battle Royale here in Lexington.

And look, Keeneland is supposed to be fun for everybody. Families come out. Folks buy horses. Kids run around like feral livestock. I’m pretty sure there are rules against letting your child sprint after thoroughbreds on the apron, but every now and then you see one doing exactly that, and you think, “Well, hell, that kid’s got a future.I got him in 11 flat ” That’s joyous. That’s childhood. But childish behavior in the auction ring? Absolutely not.

Keeneland is not the newest theme park. Serious shit goes down here. This is not the circus, where the elephants get all fucked up and start fighting each other. This is a horse auction, where adults are supposed to maintain some level of decorum while casually spending enough money to purchase an entire neighborhood.

If there is ever a place where “Serenity Now” ought to work, it’s Keeneland. Although, for me, it almost wasn’t serenity now during one glorious sale. I damn near burned the whole place down.

I was getting ready to buy a short yearling, and it was cold. I mean January cold. Ten degrees or less with the wind chill. The kind of cold where you start reconsidering every decision that brought you to Kentucky in January without bourbon.

I was wearing this scarf my daughter had made for me. Now, I hadn’t had the heart to tell her that I am not, in fact, six-foot-six. That scarf was apparently designed for a man built like a professional Kentucky basketball player. It would wrap twice around my neck, then a few times around my waist, and still have enough material left over to drag behind me like I had a tail of a Velociraptor.

So I’m standing there trying to buy a horse, talking to my man Rudy Delguidice through my earbuds, bundled up like a homeless magician, when I stepped on the scarf. My ear buds almost downright severed my ear off, that scarf tightened around my neck like it had a personal vendetta. Oh lord have mercy on my soul!

Next thing I know, I’m falling backwards directly into a heater lamp in the back ring. I’m losing consciousness, being strangled by a handmade scarf, and apparently moments away from turning Keeneland into a three-alarm fire.

But somehow I found enough strength to grab that heater and do a pole-loop maneuver like that stripper 'Cherry Bomb' at the boys club, except there was no music, no dignity, and absolutely nobody had paid for the show. Not even a $1.

But I stayed upright.

The heater stayed upright.

Keeneland stayed upright

.

And, most importantly, I bought the damn horse.

Talk about clutch.

That’s what Keeneland is all about: millions of dollars, family-made scarves, potential arson, former Army captains, professional horsemen in suspicious hats, and grown men one bid away from recreating WrestleMania in the building today.

You had bloodstock agents with fingers in the chest of influencers, and grown men yelling in the auction area like they are in high school halls.

So maybe keep your children away from the horses, keep your scarf out from underneath your boots, keep your hands off the other bidders, and for God’s sake, somebody remind Mike Repole this is an auction where he gets to spend his monies.

Not the goddamn Royal Rumble