Racehorse owner's assertion that "It’s not fair to these horses" to let horses that haven't run in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness run in the Belmont.

You've probably already seen this rant by California Chrome owner Steve Coburn after his horse, having won the Derby and Preakness, lost the Belmont and thus the Triple Crown, which no horse has won since 1978:



"This is not fair to these horses that have been in this thing running their guts out for these people and for the people that believe in them, to have some somebody come out like this — this is the coward's way out, in my opinion, this is the coward's way out."

The horse has no conception of fairness. The horse doesn't know the significance of a particular race or set of races or why this particular set of fellow horses are running with him on any given day. The projection of human ambitions and ethical standards onto the horse is perfectly silly. But they do run their guts out. Who knows why... other than to say that of the many horses that are bred for racing, only the ones with the instinct to run their guts out are in these top-level races.

It's maudlin and irrational to speak of the horse's sense of justice, but if we look directly at the minds that are relevant, the human minds, Coburn's outrage makes even less sense. Having lost, you look absurd to say that the rules should be changed to whatever it is that would have given you the victory. And the only reason the Triple Crown is so impressive is that it's very hard for the same horse to win all 3 races, with the third race being significantly longer. If you change the rules, you'd retrospectively undermine the past achievements, and the races would be less interesting to the general public and the betting public.

I mean, why are they interesting at all? Maybe it's only because we imagine the horse as having something like a human mind. I'll wait to hear from the horse.