THE OUTRAGE BUTTON:
Is there an outrage button on your phone? Because some horseplayers seem to have that son of a bitch on speed dial. They'll get outraged over things that make absolutely no sense, or things that don't mean a hill of beans to anybody with a functioning brain.
I'm filing all of this under People Do Funny Shit.
Think Girls Gone Wild, except instead of college girls taking their tops off, we've got grown adults losing their minds over horse racing. And unlike those videos, nobody's making any money off the footage.
If you've been watching racing, you've probably noticed there's a party in the paddock, at a track near me, every damn day, and somehow I didn't get the memo.
Did the invitations go out? Did mine end up in the spam folder? Is there a secret handshake I'm unaware of?
Because that paddock is packed tighter than a subway car at rush hour, and I'm convinced half the people in there don't even realize there are horses.
Everybody's dressed to the nines, chattering away, having themselves a grand old time. It's less a paddock and more a cocktail party where somebody accidentally parked a few Thoroughbreds.
And speaking of invitations, have you noticed the winner's circle photographs?
Every damn picture looks like everybody just got invited to a governor's inaugural ball. Suits, dresses, the whole nine yards. These people look ready to sit down for dinner with the governor, the lieutenant governor, and whoever the hell else made the guest list.
Which raises a question: Did they all know the horse was going to win?
Was there an email? A group text?
"Hey, everybody, we're running in the sixth. We're pretty confident we're winning, so dress accordingly. Business casual won't cut it."
Because these folks show up looking like they were expecting to collect a trophy, deliver an acceptance speech, and shake hands with the president.
Meanwhile, I'm over here trying to figure out whether my horse can get past the six-horse traffic jam in front of him.
It's a spectacle, all right.
Just last week, some tall dude, looked about six-foot-five, planted himself right in front of everybody. Somebody must've hollered, "Sit down, fool!" because the guy starts trying to crouch down while simultaneously gesticulating toward the horse like he's communicating in some kind of equine sign language.
He's bending, twisting, waving his arms around. I don't know whether he was cheering the horse on or trying to direct air traffic.
Whatever the hell he was doing, it was comedy.
And today, in the first race, the camera is panning the paddock crowd when it zeroes in on a young lady telling some guy to "get the fuck out."
Now we're talking!
Forget the horses for a minute. Let's mic these people up.
Make them sign a waiver on the way in:
By entering the paddock, you consent to having your conversations used in our year-end comedy special.
Can you imagine the footage?
"Who invited this guy?"
"That's my spot."
"Get the fuck out."
"Do you even own a piece of this horse?"
Hell, I'd watch that show before I'd watch half the stuff on television.
And I never get these invitations. Maybe some of you do. Maybe there's a secret mailing list for the Keeneland Paddock Social Club, and I've somehow been blackballed.
If you get one, let me know. I'm beginning to feel like the only guy in Kentucky who showed up to watch the horses.
Anyway, back to the outrage button.
Remember when everybody got their drawers in a bunch because races didn't go off at the exact post time printed in the program?
A race scheduled for 2:17 goes off at 2:25, and suddenly the entire industry is on trial.
It's like going to the movies, buying your ticket for an eight o'clock show, and getting pissed off because they run fifteen minutes of previews first.
You sit there screaming at the screen, "THE MOVIE WAS SUPPOSED TO START AT EIGHT!"
Meanwhile, the rest of the theater is wondering whether somebody ought to check on you.
Now, I understand post times matter. Horseplayers have money on the line, and racetracks ought to respect their customers enough to communicate when things change.
But there's a difference between demanding accountability and acting like a few minutes of delay is the collapse of Western civilization.
And then there's the CAW outrage button.
Now, let's be clear. Questions about computer-assisted wagering, transparency, and whether everyday horseplayers are competing on a fair playing field deserve serious attention.
But some folks have turned the whole thing into an outrage Olympics.
And here's the kicker: half the people screaming about it couldn't pick the winner with a map, a compass, and a personal introduction to the horse.
They weren't cashing tickets before the race, but they sure as hell knew how to cash in on the outrage afterward.
That's the funny thing about the outrage button. Some people don't need a winner. They just need a grievance.
They can lose the race and still win the argument on the internet.
But here's where I get irritated.
For all the things in this game that genuinely deserve outrage, the things that affect horse safety, rider safety, integrity, and the people who actually support racing, sometimes you could hear a pin drop.
Everybody's got their outrage button ready to go, but apparently the battery dies when the subject gets serious.
Well, I've got something of my own to be outraged about today.
And I'm going to smash that button like it owes me money.
The talking heads who feel compelled to explain how a horse won immediately after we've all watched the damn race.
The horse crosses the finish line. We just saw the whole thing. And here comes somebody on television to break it down for us.
"He went four wide, sat close to the pace, and drew away in the stretch."
Really?
I thought he stopped at the quarter pole, got a cup of coffee, and a danish, and took the scenic route home
WE JUST WATCHED THE DAMN RACE!
Give the horseplayer a little credit. We may not know everything, but we can usually tell when a horse goes four wide and wins going away. It's not exactly the Zapruder film.
I call THAT the TVG Redboard.
TVG was the worst offender. They'd tell you how the horse won, what the trainer had for breakfast, what the jockey said in the paddock, and how they'd mentioned the horse nine times before the race.
Then the winner crosses the wire, and here comes the analyst to remind you that this was the horse they were talking about.
Well, stop the presses!
Somebody get this man a medal. He's correctly identified the horse that just won a race.
That's not handicapping. That's a retrospective victory lap.
And I swear, they'd spend more time explaining the race after it was over than they spent handicapping it before it started.
That's what drives me nuts. It's not that the information is necessarily wrong. It's that they're delivering it like the audience needs a remedial course in watching horses run in a circle.
I'm getting older. I'll admit it. Some mornings I walk into a room and forget what the hell I went in there for before my first cup of coffee.
But I can still watch a horse race without somebody explaining it to me afterward.
"Okay, Grandpa, here's what happened. You see that horse with the number four? Well, he was the one who won."
No shit, son. I had the television on.
I don't need a play-by-play of something that happened thirty seconds ago. I need insight before the race, an honest opinion, a little analysis that might help me make a better decision with my money.
You know, the stuff that actually matters to a horseplayer.
So that's where I'm spending my outrage today. Not on a race going off a few minutes late. Not on some guy dressed like he's attending the governor's inaugural ball. Not on a six-foot-five man trying to communicate with a horse through interpretive river dance.
I'm saving my outrage for the people who think we need a guided tour of a race we just watched.
Maybe that's just me.
Maybe I've reached the age where I don't have the patience for bullshit delivered with a straight face.
But if we're going to have an outrage button, let's at least use the damn thing for something worthwhile.
Because this fall, we've got a paddock full of people doing funny shit, a winner's circle full of folks dressed like they're attending a state dinner, horseplayers screaming about everything under the sun, and television analysts explaining to us how a horse managed to win a race.
And somewhere in all that commotion, there's a Thoroughbred doing exactly what we came to see.
Running a horse race.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch another one.
And if somebody comes on afterward to explain how the winner won, I'm changing to the weather channel, you know the comedy channel, where a guy looks like he gonna get blown over by hurricane force winds, only have a local stroll right by like, like it was a light breeze and say "It's a little windy huh?"
I'm a proud horseplayer, not a six-year-old.
