They say it's an ill wind that blows no good and, sure enough, consoling fragments of human kindness were strewn even among the deadly havoc in Western Kentucky last week.
But besides the substantial gestures of solidarity from the Bluegrass, including the auctioning of a live foal season to a Triple Crown winner, disasters like this also tend to leave glinting in their wake tiny shards of the life force by which our species has achieved viability amidst its volatile habitat.
The tattered photograph of two smiling children, for instance, discovered by Walker Hancock in a paddock at Claiborne and shared on social media and local television. Relatives recognized the kids and contacted the farm, advising them that the family was safe albeit their home in Campbellsville, 100 miles to the south-west, had been destroyed.
None of us can presume anything of this particular family, as a snapshot of so many lives turned literally upside down, out of nowhere. But whatever their story, and whatever awaits them now, those two carefree smiles serve as a legitimate symbol of what drives so much human endeavor; of the way people strive to protect their families, to nurture their children and–in the best cases–to contribute to the communities around them.
Altruism, remember, contains its own rewards. Certainly for those who prioritize self-respect over self-regard, but also in the pragmatic sense that those who give time, energy or expertise to “the common weal” (and Kentucky, after all, is a Commonwealth) will ultimately secure an environment in which they and their families can thrive.
Looking out for each other might seem a trite enough aspiration as we take our seats around the holiday fireside. But it certainly has an extra urgency this Christmas, between the abrupt local crisis of Western Kentucky and the one now painfully prolonged, the world over, to nearly two full years. For it is precisely when our reserves are most fatigued that we most depend on each other for new resilience.
And that is equally pertinent of the walk of life we travel together. For it has felt, for a long time now, as though horse racing is facing an ongoing, parallel emergency; one that shares many of the properties of the pandemic, in that it just keeps dragging out and appears to depend critically on communal effort, and a degree of individual sacrifice, for its resolution.
So as we raise a glass of holiday bourbon, let's ask ourselves how many of our problems reflect a failure to grasp that (to use what has become a bleakly familiar phrase) “we are all in this together”. And whether we can share a resolution, in 2022, to be better neighbors.
That means, for example, recognizing exactly what you're doing if you send a horse to a trainer whose record, realistically, can only support a pretty sinister interpretation. Because even if cynical enough to serve your own interests that way, you better not have a plan that extends anywhere beyond the medium term. Whatever your guy might be putting into your horse, you are yourself sticking a syringe of poison into the sustainability of our entire industry.
It also means that those horsemen trying to derail HISA had better be relatively advanced in years. Because their pursuit of what they narrowly perceive to be their own interests will, similarly, ensure that in the end they won't have a barn, farm, even an industry to hand over to their kids.
Too much of what has been going wrong is transparently the result of barefaced avarice. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when Churchill Downs this week requested to continue off-track betting in Illinois, despite cashing in one of the jewels of the global Turf. Apparently they are now “looking for an alternate racing solution in Illinois”. Unfortunately “competitive information” meant that they could not divulge how or where, but I'll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, even after the nauseating saga of disingenuousness that has brought bulldozers to the gates of Arlington Park, the Racing Board was split five-five and only rejected the application because a majority was required. (Actually some people will only believe the Bears are going to Arlington when they see that, too, but by now most of us have adopted the sportsfan's axiom that “it's the hope that kills you.”)
It tells you what kind of year we have endured that, for many, even the closure of Arlington was not quite the nadir. As we've often noted before, the tragic story of Medina Spirit has become too convenient a shorthand for ills far more grievous than can be laid at the door of his trainer. But it has certainly reminded us how unpredictable are the tides on which our whole sport must drift.
None can say what kind of doom or redemption may now be latent in another of these beautiful animals, for the time being as anonymous as the unraced $1,000 Protonico colt caught 21st of 47 by the Santa Anita clockers on December 6, 2020, precisely a year before a similarly innocuous breeze over the same track would unaccountably renew our infamy in the wider world.
There's obviously an extremely wide spectrum of self-interest, with that pair of “Juice Man” slippers nestling at one end. All we can do is remember that individual success, nowadays, will only be lasting if we have first observed our responsibilities to each other. That may not always have appeared the case. In the Damon Runyon era, indeed, the opposite view may even have had a little glamor. But I guess that's pretty much how we've ended up where we are today.
So as each of these sudden moral tornados make matchsticks of our collective reputation, one after the other, the only way we can rebuild is side by side, the best of neighbors.
Good neighbors are big-hearted and vigilant. They won't allow the alleys to be piled with syringes; they won't allow developers to put a wrecking ball through the community hall. Every smiling kid is theirs to protect: whether their own, or those being raised by neighbors or colleagues, or even by strangers 100 miles away.
And, you know what, it's exactly the same with the Thoroughbred itself. We bring horses into the world in all their innocence, with a temporary but momentous duty of stewardship. So if our kids are to grow up proud of where they come from, and secure in their community's future, then they'll want us to show the same, selfless devotion to our horses as they are entitled to expect themselves.
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