the cautious life.

Update: So, he didn’t win. He finished last. Why? Probably, no one will ever know. My point exactly.

You could fairly say the city I live in – and the entire region, actually – is really into horse racing. Like, sometimes-on-the-verge-of-creepy into horse racing.

That’s fine. I have nothing against the sport.  But I’m not from here — and I totally don’t get it. I’m told by people who are from here that that’s because I don’t really understand what horse racing is all about: the history, the mystique, the beauty of such powerful animals competing.

No … no I don’t think that’s it.

When it comes to sports, I like humans. When a human outfielder in baseball makes a spectacular diving catch, I appreciate it because, as a fellow human, I can understand just how difficult that was to do.

Or, if the same outfielder falls down while fielding a routine base hit, turning it into an inside-the-park home run, I know he can understand exactly what I’m screaming about his mother — and that gives me a sense of connection to the whole enterprise, ownership, kinship even.

To me, a horse is a horse. They’re big, they run fast — sometimes with little men in shiny pants on top. Going to the track once a year is fun as a spectacle, almost as much to watch the people who really like horse racing as the horse racing itself.

And so Big Brown may win the Triple Crown today. I wish him luck. If he does, my bosses will sell many newspapers, which is always a good day in my book. That horse may make a lot of people big bucks and very happy — or furious. But I don’t think he’ll know it, either way.  And where’s the fun in that?