He Just Can't Help Himself

A few more Derby thoughts on this Oaks day up at the TimeformUS blog here.

Quite a surprise on the front page of the New York Times today.  Not only was there no new PETA bombshell nor negative racing story of any kind, but there was this:

Can you believe this?  A bucolic (h/t to the person who uttered that word that I was struggling to recall) backstretch photo with the sun coming up in the background.  As prominent as it could possibly be!  Could this be a new age of detente?  Is the Times trying to make up for past transgressions; to make people forget that it has violated many rules of fair journalism in its zeal to advance its anti-racing agenda?  Did it send Joe Drape to the woodshed?

Well, turns out that they sent him to the online edition.  Drape apparently just could not help himself.  Just couldn't let the occasion pass.  So, we have this article on their website, entitled Scandal Casts Shadow Over Grandeur of Kentucky Derby.  Nothing to see here, really.  It's just a rehash; it contains no news whatsoever.  Gratuitous and unnecessary, in my opinion.  Makes some of the same twisted assertions; such as the totally unfounded claim that the medication issue has anything to do with the decline in wagering handle.  Perhaps we'll see it in print tomorrow when nobody is reading the Times. 

Well, I don't want to dignify it by going into the details.  But I will point out this one particularly sensationalized passage. 

  Is there a human athlete, even one paid millions of dollars annually, who would agree to a regimen of up to 26 drugs — including thyroxine to raise his metabolism and acepromazine to calm himself? Is there one who would agree to multiple injections a week to joints and muscles or undergo shock-wave therapy to get one more inning, one more quarter or one more match out of a sore body?

  Well, for one thing, I don't know that the answer to the second question is as obvious as Drape wants to make it seem!  But in any event, the comparison is just absurd.  Horses are not human athletes.  There is no comparing them.  Humans don't eat hay and oats either, nor do they sleep in a barn.  And they are not bred with the sole purpose of serving the financial and entertainment interests of other humans.  (As I've said many times, if you are a fan of the sport, you have willfully accepted that we breed these animals to exploit them for our own pleasure and gain.)  So, spare us the linguistic dramatics, please.  Just tell us who you like.

Oh.  Wicked Strong?  That's original.