The Kentucky Derby decision was not a good one. It was a rough & tumble race on a wet and sloppy track, actually, a beautiful thing to watch. Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur. The best horse did NOT win the Kentucky Derby - not even close!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2019
I hear politics because, first, he bemoans "these days of political correctness," but also because: "It was a rough & tumble race on a wet and sloppy track, actually, a beautiful thing to watch." He loves the "rough & tumble." He finds it beautiful. And that's politics too — rough & tumble on a wet and sloppy track.
That's beautiful... in the Trumpian aesthetic. Now, who wants to run in a wet and sloppy, rough and tumble race with him? Maybe somebody else who finds that beautiful. Who would that be?
Or are all his antagonists stuck believing they can get the authorities to disqualify him? They've been trying, but real life — real American political life — is not a day at the derby.
By the way, is it hard to understand why the disqualification of that horse, Maximum Security, had anything to do with "political correctness"?
ADDED: Maximum Security had toxic masculinity.
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82 comments:
Smear Merchants are going to go nuts in 5... 4... 3...
Most horses barely make minimum wage.
The derby organizers really fucked this up.
This is going to destroy the aura the race has built up.
They might as well not run it anymore and just pick the winner.
That is how democrats want it for everything. They hate competition. They want the government to pick the winners.
Now they ruined the derby for good.
We now call breaking rules when it's too your advantage the "Trumpian aesthetic"? I call it bad morals.
Ah, ha. Trump is a horse breederist. And he thinks a white horse should always win . He wants to see the Master Race horses wipeout all the other breeds. The Black Beauty lovers and National Velvet lovers are losers.
I see it as a reference to Trump's alleged interference with Mueller's investigation. Trump has been denied a clean 'win' because he allegedly came out of his lane when he bad-mouthed Mueller.
KY Derby...wet and sloppy track... um, ok
maybe, in his 'wet-n-sloppy' lexicon, he was alluding to the type of machinations
that put the 'correct' candidate up vs the fastest horse (e.g. Bernie screwed)
Seriously, until the NFL Draft all football players are like race horses kept for Saturday's races and only paid all the food they can eat.
Maximum Security just wasn't a likable horse.
"Maximum Security." If it was a filly named Diversity Strength, there's no way it would've been DQed.
Horses running together are beautiful. There is something aesthetically pleasing when they splash through standing water or snow. I get what he’s saying.
At the result of the race I had the same feeling about political correctness. It’s the leftie need to intervene in outcomes. Merit no more.
What Trump hates about the Kentucky Derby ruling and disqualification is that it was the application of the rule of law to something that Trump's instantaneous gut told him was popular (the first horse across the line wins).
As the people who were with me watching the race will attest, as soon as it happened -- and before the lead horse had even gotten to the backstretch -- I was yelling, "Foul! That was a foul!"
A clear and unanimous application of the rule, despite emotions. The rule of law.
" By the way, is it hard to understand why the disqualification of that horse, Maximum Security, had anything to do with "political correctness"? "
The same comment was made here in the cafe last night. I don't 100 percent understand it, but I feel like I 70 percent understand how people are getting there.
"By the way, is it hard to understand why the disqualification of that horse, Maximum Security, had anything to do with "political correctness"?"
Just decoding: PC = trying to change the outcome of the actual race after the fact, as progs tried to do with Trump.
Except that the Derby stewards did it quickly and, it seems, by the book. Whereas in Trump's case the supposed stewards had been muddying the track and putting obstacles in his lane to get him to fall and fail.
It's okay. Maximum Security will receive a participation trophy, and in the final analysis it's not about winning. It's that every horse tried its hardest. They're all winners!
To Ann's question: PC because they were influenced by current overly-delicate concerns about toxic masculinity and the terrible EGW crisis. The idea that they could identify 16 animals affected by Maximum Security's wanderings, aka toxic masculinity impeding the delicate flowers behind him, is not merely ludicrous but illustrates the PC nature of the deliberations.
Just as lefties can identify all the victims of natural market actions and capitalism's liberties. Somehow two of the horses weren't bothered by this catastrophic global wandering from the leading colt.
This was not an equine decision, it was an asinine one.
I just watched the race.
That "interference" had nothing to do with who won or lost. The horse Maximum Security ran in front of ran out of gas at the end and finished around 10th. There were dozens of similar events happening all during the race.
Get in front if you don't want a horse in front of you.
They might as well declare all the horses winners, give them all trophies, and just have a parade at this point.
Another institution destroyed by the people who hate competition. The only way they can fix this is by firing the people who made this stupid call and giving the win back to the winner.
I think he means the blocking should be okay and that only pussies would not understand that and complain, and that the whole PC SJW thing is a lot of pussies complaining about the rough and tumble of real life and need to get over it.
I guess I'm sexist, I blame the woman chief steward but the consensus among the Derby horse trainers whose horses weren't involved in the incident seems to be that it was the correct decision. Also, the average thoroughbred sells for about $50,000 and returns an average of about $30,000 per horse.
Maximum Security had toxic masculinity.
Because this is a blog of record, we should note that one of the three stewards who made the disqualification decision was Tyler Picklesimer.
Chuck said...
What Trump hates about the Kentucky Derby ruling and disqualification is that it was the application of the rule of law to something that Trump's instantaneous gut told him was popular (the first horse across the line wins).
As the people who were with me watching the race will attest, as soon as it happened -- and before the lead horse had even gotten to the backstretch -- I was yelling, "Foul! That was a foul!"
A clear and unanimous application of the rule, despite emotions. The rule of law.
What law has Trump broken Chuck? Make this clear and unanimous demonstration without emotion.
I am sure you were back there in the peanut gallery crying Foul. That is what you cucks do. That is probably the first honest thing you have said here in a while.
You hate winners. You hate people that actually fight and do things. You are just an ankle biting pest.
You are unlikable. Like Hillary and your other leftist allies. Nobody likes you. Nobody wants you around.
Parallel well played, Ann.
I commented on last night's thread about why the stewards made the right decision. The word "steward" is appropriate.
Maximum Security's lane-change came incredibly close to causing a serious accident. Television viewers almost saw multiple horses go down on top of each other. Multiple Jockeys would have been injured, perhaps killed. Horses would have had to be euthanized on the track.
That would have killed the Kentucky Derby right there.
Maybe the jockey should have controlled the horse better. Maybe the trainer should have trained the horse better. Maybe it was a freak occurrence that the horse was spooked. It doesn't matter. The rules for disqualification were fairly applied. The reason there are such rules is to keep people and horses from dying.
What law has Trump broken Chuck? Make this clear and unanimous demonstration without emotion.
Chuck prefers losers, like JEB! and Bill Kristol, who got this guy to fund The Bulwark.
Omidyar is a major donor to Democratic Party candidates and organizations.
There ya go !
Dreams said...
I guess I'm sexist, I blame the woman chief steward but the consensus among the Derby horse trainers whose horses weren't involved in the incident seems to be that it was the correct decision.
The word is "credit". For some reason you used the word "blame."
While other horses might have been disadvantaged by Maximum Security's straying from his lane, it didn't impact Country House. Maybe one of the disadvantaged horses might have been the winner of the race, but Country House was not going to win one way or the other. So Country House was allowed to benefit from something that didn't really affect him. Whether he's deserving of the Derby win will show at the Belmont and the Preakness. I'm guessing this win won't come close to repeating itself. There will be a permanent asterisk after his Derby win.
"By the way, is it hard to understand why the disqualification of that horse, Maximum Security, had anything to do with "political correctness"?"
Something happened. In America.
Maximum Security's lane-change came incredibly close to causing a serious accident.
Agreed but it did not look to me like anything but a result of the sloppy track. Maybe they should not run in those conditions because it is dangerous. That's the PC aspect in my opinion.
Oh, a post about the Derby.
But let's comment about Chuck instead!
@Michael K -- Luis Saez himself said that Maximum Security was spooked by the crowd.
Saez said the horse had a good race until he got to final turn before the home stretch and the noise of the crowd of 150,729 fans unnerved the horse. "He started getting a little bit scared," Saez said. "But then I grabbed him and I controlled him. And I kept fighting because I know he's a real fighter."
For the record, here's the rule in question:
"If a leading horse or any other horse in a race swerves or is ridden to either side so as to interfere with, intimidate, or impede any other horse or jockey, or to cause the same result, this action shall be deemed a foul. ... If, in the opinion of the stewards, a foul alters the finish of a race, an offending horse may be disqualified by the stewards."
If you want to talk about correctness of some kind find out who had big money on Country House.
Soon, people, there will be no winners or losers in the Kentucky Derby, only participants. All will win some sort of cheap award. Now, shut the fuck up and go home, America.
Michael K said...
Maximum Security's lane-change came incredibly close to causing a serious accident.
Agreed but it did not look to me like anything but a result of the sloppy track. Maybe they should not run in those conditions because it is dangerous. That's the PC aspect in my opinion.
Agreed as well and moreover it looked like a clear case of incredibly aggressive riding. Luis Saez swung Maximum Security two lanes out to the right to cut off horses on the outside and then swing back three lanes to the inside to cut off the horse coming up on the rail.
Every experienced racing horseman I have read so far has called it a clear case that would have been called as interference in any routine daily stakes race.
And I don't think it was a track condition issue at all. The puddles on the track from the pre-race grading only emphasized how badly Saez interfered. And yet there was a safety issue. The safety issue was Saez's recklessness.
"If, in the opinion of the stewards, a foul alters the finish of a race, an offending horse may be disqualified by the stewards."
Wow, Henry, so you still maintain this was the right decision? Yes, it was a foul, but there's no way it altered the finish of the race.
Note that it doesn't say, "If in the opinion of the stewards, the foul created a dangerous situation," which has been your point.
The 'so called' winner was hardly touched during the incident.
That other horse took the brunt of the contact, legs almost entangling.
The 'so called' winner will never 'win' another race.
Congrats on your fantastic win!
This article by Cindy Boren captures what I've been saying, but from a different, more positive angle:
The Kentucky Derby’s unsung heroes averted disaster in horse racing’s worst year
Boren includes a link to analysis by The Daily Racing Form's Mike Watchmaker who drives home the point that the Derby, because of it's outsized importance, has a history of overlooking fouls:
What does matter is, Maximum Security and jockey Luis Saez committed a legitimate foul – on War of Will, at the very least – and they had to pay the piper for it. And what also matters is, what would universally be considered a foul in every other horse race in the United States is now also considered a foul in the Kentucky Derby. The Derby no longer has an unspoken exemption. And that is a very good thing.
Boren's article includes slow-motion footage that shows Maximum Security's leg actually hitting War of Will twice.
Well, Trump had already declared his love of wet and sloppy things before this.
Chuck as Paul Blart, TV-watching horse racing cop.
Chuck, as a Smear Merchant crossing guard.
readering typing something nobody cares to read.
This thread is developing nicely.
The steward's call was correct for a dry track. But in muddy (i.e., slippery) conditions, Maximum Security had to go a little wide so he didn't slip. It's no damn different if you take a curve in your car when the roads are icy. You swing a little wide to maintain control. Simple as that.
Trump's point—and my point—is that the stewards looked at the rule through very narrow glasses. They took the rule literally, giving no accommodation to track conditions and the dynamics of the race.
There is a good probability that, had Maximum Security stayed on its "track," he would have either slipped or had to slow down markedly in order not to slip. The stewards ignored the conditions of the race, just like bureaucrats ignore everything except their silly regulations.
If the rules are in place to protect the horses and the riders—as they most assuredly are—then the rules should not have penalized Maximum Security for taking a safe track around a very slippery turn. End of story.
@James K -- I think that most people within horseracing will call it a correct decision.
And yes, the foul did change the outcome of the race because it both War of Will and Long Range Toddy had to be checked by their jockey's, losing pace and definitely losing position.
William, Max's own Jockey said he shied from crowd noise.
And no other horse went sliding three lanes over.
I grew up in Saratoga and have seen thousands of races, hundreds of inquiries and objections and at least a dozen serious accidents. Racing is inherently dangerous but to me this seemed like nothing that should merit the result. Contact and bumping is common and doesn’t always result in DQ or sending a horse down. Often it does not. I don’t know what goes on on KY, but having watched racing there for decades this seemed like an atypical decision.
I think that most people within horseracing will call it a correct decision.
That's not a "rule of law" argument. Chuck, at least, has been blabbering about "rule of law," evidently without knowing the rule in question. The stewards clearly had discretion on this. It was a judgment call. You agree with the judgment. That's fine. Chuck is an idiot.
I watched the video of the race last night, and I think probably the DQ was a mistake. I did try to imagine such a disqualification happening, let's say 25 years ago, and couldn't really imagine it happening. So, yes, I think Trump is correct here- PC is part of the problem. This overarching desire for "fairness" is a disease since it can't really ever be obtained.
However, if you are going to DQ the horse and jockey, then I think the prize purse of 1st place should have been distributed to the entire field equally, and "No Winner" entered into the record books. I don't consider the 2nd place horse a winner.
A clear and unanimous application of the rule, despite emotions.
Then why did it take 22 fuckin' minutes if it was so clear?
Just consider what is going to happen now- you will see far more complaints about fouls in horse racing going forward. If you watch any horse race with more than 10 entrants, there is an enormous amount of jockeying for positions across the front- any such race is open to complaints from losing teams. That incident at the Derby yesterday is borderline at best, and I think it would have been better to simply deep-six the complaint.
You see, this is why Chuck is so upset about what happened to Low Energy Jeb!
Jim makes the correct observation- if this was a clear cut violation, then you really don't have to look at the video more than once- the decision should have been within a couple of minutes, tops. You only take 22 minutes if the Stewards debating with one another trying to convince themselves. Surely Churchill Downs has 150 years of results to pull from- how many similar DQs have been entered?
The good result is that all horses will now have the same odds of winning. It will make handicapping easier.
Too bad Trump didn’t see the correct analogy:
The disqualification of Maximum Security was based on well established racing rules just as Trump’s win in the Electoral College overrides the popular vote.
As always, it all comes back to Seinfeld...
Man in OTB Line: But it's a little slow out there, it rained last night.
Kramer: Oh, this baby loves the slop, loves it, eats it up. Eats the slop. Born in the slop. His father was a mudder.
OTB Man: His father was a mudder?
Kramer: His mother was a mudder.
OTB Man: His mother was a mudder?
Kramer: What did I just say?
Jim, Yancey -- The stewards followed the standard procedure of interviewing the jockeys as well as reviewing the tape. I'm not sure "how long it took" has any meaning whatsoever. It's not like the stewards were holding up the game by taking a long time. I would also speculate that all the pressure on the stewards would have been to NOT call the DQ. They knew it would allow a ridiculous upset winner to win and that it would mess with all the hype and money that goes into the triple crown.
Fouls in horse racing are called all the time. Not every race, but at every track in every season there will be fouls called and the occasionally DQ. The conceit here seems to be that they should not be called when the race is really really important.
Ironically, Yancey, the last Kentucky Derby DQ happened in 1984 -- 35 years ago. In that case a 4th place horse was moved to 5th.
@James K. -- Chuck invariably hurts his own side of an argument.
Durbin Cuckholster Friar Chuck: "As the people who were with me watching the race will attest, as soon as it happened -- and before the lead horse had even gotten to the backstretch -- I was yelling, "Foul! That was a foul!"
LOLOLOLOLOL
Perfect.
Simply perfect.
Henry, I am talking about DQing a winner.
Also, what the jockeys say shouldn't matter at all given the high quality video evidence at hand. To give you analogy- in basketball or football video reviews, no one asks the players what happened, and for good reasons.
It is easy to DQ a 4th place runner.
Plus, wasn't "Maximum Security" disqualified for obstruction?
Plus, wasn't "Maximum Security" disqualified for obstruction?
You're supposed to call it "stallionspreading" now.
Yancey Ward said...
It is easy to DQ a 4th place runner.
Well, yeah. That's what the racing professionals are saying -- that on any other track on any other day this DQ would have been a no-brainer.
The stewards talk to the jockeys because that's what the process is.
Unlike Chuck I do not claim to have jumped up and cried "foul" at my screen, but the action at the final turn did startle me. First because the move by Maximum Security made no sense and second because it is unusual to see a horse swerving around the lanes like that. It is incredibly dangerous.
Based on the jockey statements and the video the foul seems unquestionable. What I'm hearing against the call seems like special pleading to me. It's all variations on "the wrong horse won."
Trump should identify with that.
I will not pretend to know anything about horse racing rules (cf. Chuckles the Clown), but I will compare it to playoff basketball games where the refs are much more hesitant to call a foul.
When the best performers are on the court/track, they decide who wins the game, not the refs/stewards.
<>
So unquestionable the jockey of the "fouled" horse never claimed any foul.
Based on the jockey statements and the video the foul seems unquestionable
So unquestionable the jockey on the fouled horse never claimed any foul.
My spouse, the resident horse expert, stated after the race, the jockey for Max Security would never ride that horse again.
Of course, by pulling the jockey you would be admitting he did in fact make a grievous error.
I did think the best comment of the evening on the part of the NBC hosts was something to the effect:
"Well the horse doesn't know he lost."
Stewards make an inquirywhile jockeys have a process where they file an objection. Was there an objection?
This was a horse move. They do funny things. Jump their own shadow, get spooked by a gap in the hedge, get frightened by crowd noise. Terms like bore out are used for a horse that quickly moves in the way of Maximum Security. There’s also the term drifted which is a less severe version of a similar move.
I would have used drifted.
Well, had there been an accident and horses put down, and God forbid, riders killed, as has been said above, it would be the end of horse racing.
Some horse did something.
I think it was a silly ruling as well. I understand the concerns about jockey safety but in that mess it was hardly grounds to change the winner.
OTOH, my throwaway-based-solely-on-long-odds $10 bet brought me $663 so it’s difficult to be too outraged.
“Twenty-fucking-five to one
My gambling days are done
I bet on a horse called the Bottle of Smoke
And my horse won”
rehajm said...
Stewards make an inquirywhile jockeys have a process where they file an objection. Was there an objection?
There was not just one; there were two objections.
Francisco D said...
I will not pretend to know anything about horse racing rules (cf. Chuckles the Clown), but I will compare it to playoff basketball games where the refs are much more hesitant to call a foul.
When the best performers are on the court/track, they decide who wins the game, not the refs/stewards.
And it has been the subject of much writing in the past 24 hours; how much had been allowed to go on in a race like the Kentucky Derby because no one ever wanted to call a foul that would upset any placing. The Kentucky Derby traditionally has a large field. This was a call by the books, and a good one.
I guess you could say Maximum Security won the popular vote.
Apologies if someone made that comment above.
There was not just one; there were two objections
Which two riders? I only saw the steward inquiry...
wait--what!?!
there was a second steward, on the grassy infield?
I think that this year's Kentucky Derby had as many horses as next year's Democrat primary has horses asses already entered. The horses were all running in a pack. LLR Chuck yelled "foul" while the horses were on the backstretch, long before the final turn where the foul--if it was a foul--actually occurred. But then the Chuckster is ever ready with an early smear.
Maximum Security's failure--if it was a failure-- was in not getting out far enough ahead of the pack that a little wobble one way or the other would have no impact on the outcome of the race.
It took the stewards 22 minutes to figure it out---sorta like the time it took the Supremes and the Florida Supreme Court to figure out Bush v. Gore in December 2000. It was not an attractive look.
Now when the Democrat candidates start to jostle each other in the primaries it's not going to be pretty. And after all the cut and thrust, the survivor will have to take on The Donald. Maybe true victory for a Democrat prospective candidate will consist of coming second in the primaries--and not having to take on The Donald.
I figure
Country House was allowed to benefit from something that didn't really affect him.
Country House was allowed to benefit from something BECAUSE IT didn't really affect him.
Isn’t that how affirmative action seems to work? The people of color with all the advantages use affirmative action to get into Harvard and the Harvard degree to get into Wall Street, while low income kids are largely unaided?
Best football game I ever saw was a Hula Bowl played in a torrential downpour, with about 4 inches of standing water on the field. Rough and tumble, and a beautiful game.
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