i think i have to give up on horse racing

[click image]

.
I have been looking through all the top horses' bloodlines and there isn't a one of them who doesn't have just shitloads of the Native Dancer genes in them. Same as last year. Every horse in the race... maybe every Thoroughbred by now... has too much of this dazzling bloodline that runs too strongly to WEAK bones. I stand firmly in my conviction that the Jockey Club should open up the stud book to let in some Akhal-Teke stallions. They're leaner, with very strong legs, fast and the closest living descendants of the Turkoman Horse, one of which was a foundation stallion for the Thoroughbred breed, and... well... I'm starting to stress again... SOMEONE has GOT to get smart about this.

Eskendereya was a serious favorite for today's race, winning everything scarily well, but is chock-full of Northern Dancer [out of a Native Dancer mare] and a bunch of other closely-related horses from that same line, and, yep, they had to scratch him from the Derby because of a leg "filling". I'm very glad they did. Saved us from witnessing another Eight Belles tragedy. Maybe the assholes will let him grow before they send him out pounding on the track again... gelded....

OR, all Thoroughbred racing should be moved back a year, not let them start at all until they're three, and wait to put FOUR-year-olds in the big races. I don't think it is that they NEVER get strong. It's just that they're not fully-formed this early and people are too goddam greedy.

Maybe I shouldn't worry. Maybe they will have inbred so much by next year that the foals will just crumble before they are even weanlings.
.