Help
It's Derby day, and I know nothing about horse racing. I used to watch it when I was a kid, though because it was such a big deal. Anything that was a big deal interested me because I wanted to know why it was such a big deal. As I got older, I began to understand why people flip out over the Kentucky Derby. First, horse racing is crack for gamblers, so you've got them from the get go. Second is the tradition. It got started in 1875, so anything that old that keeps going is going to be a big deal for that reason alone. But it has to be a big deal to keep going in the first place. So, third, there's the party. The Derby gives people a reason to prepare, dress up in stupid hats and go outside and get hammered in the spring time. It's like Easter without all that religious mucky muck and with drinks that make women forget there's bourbon in them.
But the real reason it's a big deal? The race is very exciting. It's only about two minutes long. A Superbowl can last four hours. A World Series can last six months (hlep me out, Dodgerking!). So something with that much build up that is over that quickly had better be extremely exciting. And it used to be for me. I'd listen to the stories about the horses and the jockeys and by race time, I had a horse to root for. I think I lost interest because they either don't tell the stories as well or the stories aren't that great anymore. It's probably the former, but here'e the kind of story I keep seeing this year:
Just another cross promotional marketing boon for Mr. My Secretary Pays Higher Taxes Than Me So Vote Obama, or Warren Buffet as he's known to friends. I couldn't care less about it.
So, instead, I'll listen to some songs about horse and then take the kids to see The Avengers!
5. Bring on the Dancing Horses Echo and the Bunnymen
video
4. Crazy Horses Tank
video
3. Wild Horses Rolling Stones
Video
2. Run for the Roses Dan Fogelberg
1. Spirit Horse of the Cherokee* Manowar
My Mind is Clean
*Dedicated to Elizabeth Warren
But the real reason it's a big deal? The race is very exciting. It's only about two minutes long. A Superbowl can last four hours. A World Series can last six months (hlep me out, Dodgerking!). So something with that much build up that is over that quickly had better be extremely exciting. And it used to be for me. I'd listen to the stories about the horses and the jockeys and by race time, I had a horse to root for. I think I lost interest because they either don't tell the stories as well or the stories aren't that great anymore. It's probably the former, but here'e the kind of story I keep seeing this year:
Quote
One of the nation’s largest jewelry retailers, Helzberg Diamonds, is hoping it picked the winner in today’s Kentucky Derby through its sponsorship of jockey, Javier Castellano, who will ride Derby favorite Gemologist.
<snip>
The Berkshire Hathaway-owned jewelry retailer has also has been using the Derby tie-in for several cross-promotional activities that include its “I am Loved” Mother’s Day button, a fashionable jewelry guide for the Kentucky Derby outfits and a “Derby things we love” Pinterest page.
<snip>
The Berkshire Hathaway-owned jewelry retailer has also has been using the Derby tie-in for several cross-promotional activities that include its “I am Loved” Mother’s Day button, a fashionable jewelry guide for the Kentucky Derby outfits and a “Derby things we love” Pinterest page.
Just another cross promotional marketing boon for Mr. My Secretary Pays Higher Taxes Than Me So Vote Obama, or Warren Buffet as he's known to friends. I couldn't care less about it.
So, instead, I'll listen to some songs about horse and then take the kids to see The Avengers!
5. Bring on the Dancing Horses Echo and the Bunnymen
video
4. Crazy Horses Tank
video
3. Wild Horses Rolling Stones
Video
2. Run for the Roses Dan Fogelberg
1. Spirit Horse of the Cherokee* Manowar
My Mind is Clean
*Dedicated to Elizabeth Warren
Share This Entry:
25 Comments On This Entry
Search My Blog
Features and Blog Roll
What Folks Are Saying About The Conservative Mindcleaner:
Jonah Goldberg of National Review says:"Uh Oh!"
Vox Day says: "A man after my own heart"
Chris's thought-provoking commentary and his sensible conservatism keeps California from falling further to the left and disappearing into the Pacific. He's a teacher, football fan and an all-around down to earth guy.-Leland Lyerla (The Southern Illinoisian Sports)
To add your testimonial, email me at chris.naron@gmail.com
Unregistered Guests ARE now ABLE to Comment!
The Mindclear Music Project My daughter, Maegan, and I making music...
Poltergiest
Red Beans
This Song
Killing Your Dream
The First Star
Nock
Happy Fun Town My old band...
Monkeydude
Life as a Fool
Features
Contact Me: chris.naron@gmail.com
Blogs
Wild Game: Hunt at your peril
A Very Cool Blog on the Writing Business: Real, working authors giving advice...The Friday Challenge: Bruce Bethke
Breitbart
Ace of Spades
The Corner
Acculturated
The Truth About Guns
Althouse
Instapundit
Ricochet
The American Conservative
The People's Cube
Retraction Watch
Apologetics315
WagToons
Lileks
Elusively Yours
MIn TheGap
Righter's Blog Archive (Old School)
Barrels of Fish...for Shooting
Addicting Info
Jonathan Merritt (Green Baptist)
Pandagon
The New Republic
Atrios
Dailykos
Feministe
Domestic Pets
Mental Floss
Dilbert Blog
Y Safle
Mindcleaner Mania Daily Trivia Tournament
Cartoon Cleaner
--Political Cartoons by Rightnation Artists...
David Allen's Blog
News Voyager
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
World Net Daily
Townhall
912 Project Profile
New! Learn How to Use Google Like a Pro!Googletutor
Recent Entries
My Blog Links
Updated! World's Shortest Movie Reviews
Iron Man 3 Don't be sad, he can make more suits.
Lincoln Crack for historians.
Bully I'm sorry, but I've never seen a more clueless bunch of parents and--especially--educators.
Fat Head If you want to regain some intelligence after watching Supersize Me, watch this.
The Hobbit Not a movie. An achievement.
Red Dawn Uh, those North Koreans look pretty well fed. Almost as well fed as the Chinese. Good explosions.
Expendables 2 Someone had the genius idea to film the Random Facts About Chuck Norris. And kudos to Chuck because the film had almost no cursing.
Lincoln Brilliant. Funny. Sad. Daniel Day Lewis should get an Oscar by Constitutional amendment.
2016: Obama's America Great for high and low info voters. Not much new for the high info voter, but some good theoretical discussion. Dinesh is still a punk for agreeing to an interview, then ducking my harder questions.
The Dark Knight Rises: Best treatment of the hero theme ever. Great re-imagining of the Russian Revolution, also.
The Amazing Spiderman: Better than the original. Here's why: Emma Stone way better than Kirsten Dunce. The kid who plays Spidey is way better than Toby McGuire. Closer to the comic from what I understand. No silly Power Rangers mask on villain. I like how they keep him in high school. Martin Sheen gets shot.
Three Stooges: Turning Moe loose on the cast of Jersey Shore? Masterful.
The Avengers: The only word for how awesome this movie is: Dude.
Winter's Bone: Jennifer Lawrence deserves an Oscar for just reading this script. Let's just say don't stray too far out of Branson if you're ever up in the Ozarks.
The Hunger Games: The Running Man for pre-teen girls. But with more stabbing.
Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon: A jackhammer of an action movie. Wildly xceeded my low expectations.
Super 8: Thank you Misters Spielberg and Abrams. The former may be a pinko commie lib, but he knows what he's doing. The latter may be a jerk around artist when he's got years to tell a story. But give him just a couple of hours, and he's dead on. Great, great old school 80s era Spielberg flick.
True Grit: I didn't want to like it out of respect for The Duke, but dang it if those Cohen brothers aren't masterful.
X-Men First Class: Yet another home run from Marvel. It's funny, the first time I saw Magneto's helmet, I thought "That would look great on Kevin Bacon."
The Hangover 2: Um. Yeah. Sick. My sainted wife picked this one. I'm sure the prospect of seeing Bradley Cooper's Magnum PI caliber chest had nothing to do with it.Thor: On par with Iron Man, which means top-notch. Jeremy Shockey is great as Thor. What? That's not Jeremy Shockey? Well, he should sue then.
Battle: LASo, that's what happened on the ground on Independence Day. Seriously, very good movie.
Tangled: A Burkean mix of aesthetics and respect for tradition. In other words, it was pretty cool.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Spectacular. Some visuals that are so beautiful they almost hurt to look at.
Tron: Legacy: I don't know why they had to mess with perfection.
The A-Team: I wasn't a believer until stuff blew up. Then I was, like, "yeah!"Waiting for Superman: I haven't been this disappointed since I found out that To Kill a Mockingbird wasn't a documentary.
The Book of Eli: Had the potential for one of the greatest endings in movie history but pissed it away with one scene.
She's Out of My League: Is there a RomCom factory somewhere and can we blow it up in the A-Team sequal?
Waking Sleeping Beauty: I liked the Pixar Story much better. It's basically the same movie about movies.
Clash of the Titans: Yelling "Release the Kraken!" when you go into the men's room is still funny. But it has been funny since the 80's, so...
Date Night: Not your average RomCom. I think this is the movie Alfred Hitchcock was trying to make when he slapped North by Northwest together.
Iron Man 2: Keep them coming. Please.
Lincoln Crack for historians.
Bully I'm sorry, but I've never seen a more clueless bunch of parents and--especially--educators.
Fat Head If you want to regain some intelligence after watching Supersize Me, watch this.
The Hobbit Not a movie. An achievement.
Red Dawn Uh, those North Koreans look pretty well fed. Almost as well fed as the Chinese. Good explosions.
Expendables 2 Someone had the genius idea to film the Random Facts About Chuck Norris. And kudos to Chuck because the film had almost no cursing.
Lincoln Brilliant. Funny. Sad. Daniel Day Lewis should get an Oscar by Constitutional amendment.
2016: Obama's America Great for high and low info voters. Not much new for the high info voter, but some good theoretical discussion. Dinesh is still a punk for agreeing to an interview, then ducking my harder questions.
The Dark Knight Rises: Best treatment of the hero theme ever. Great re-imagining of the Russian Revolution, also.
The Amazing Spiderman: Better than the original. Here's why: Emma Stone way better than Kirsten Dunce. The kid who plays Spidey is way better than Toby McGuire. Closer to the comic from what I understand. No silly Power Rangers mask on villain. I like how they keep him in high school. Martin Sheen gets shot.
Three Stooges: Turning Moe loose on the cast of Jersey Shore? Masterful.
The Avengers: The only word for how awesome this movie is: Dude.
Winter's Bone: Jennifer Lawrence deserves an Oscar for just reading this script. Let's just say don't stray too far out of Branson if you're ever up in the Ozarks.
The Hunger Games: The Running Man for pre-teen girls. But with more stabbing.
Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon: A jackhammer of an action movie. Wildly xceeded my low expectations.
Super 8: Thank you Misters Spielberg and Abrams. The former may be a pinko commie lib, but he knows what he's doing. The latter may be a jerk around artist when he's got years to tell a story. But give him just a couple of hours, and he's dead on. Great, great old school 80s era Spielberg flick.
True Grit: I didn't want to like it out of respect for The Duke, but dang it if those Cohen brothers aren't masterful.
X-Men First Class: Yet another home run from Marvel. It's funny, the first time I saw Magneto's helmet, I thought "That would look great on Kevin Bacon."
The Hangover 2: Um. Yeah. Sick. My sainted wife picked this one. I'm sure the prospect of seeing Bradley Cooper's Magnum PI caliber chest had nothing to do with it.Thor: On par with Iron Man, which means top-notch. Jeremy Shockey is great as Thor. What? That's not Jeremy Shockey? Well, he should sue then.
Battle: LASo, that's what happened on the ground on Independence Day. Seriously, very good movie.
Tangled: A Burkean mix of aesthetics and respect for tradition. In other words, it was pretty cool.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Spectacular. Some visuals that are so beautiful they almost hurt to look at.
Tron: Legacy: I don't know why they had to mess with perfection.
The A-Team: I wasn't a believer until stuff blew up. Then I was, like, "yeah!"Waiting for Superman: I haven't been this disappointed since I found out that To Kill a Mockingbird wasn't a documentary.
The Book of Eli: Had the potential for one of the greatest endings in movie history but pissed it away with one scene.
She's Out of My League: Is there a RomCom factory somewhere and can we blow it up in the A-Team sequal?
Waking Sleeping Beauty: I liked the Pixar Story much better. It's basically the same movie about movies.
Clash of the Titans: Yelling "Release the Kraken!" when you go into the men's room is still funny. But it has been funny since the 80's, so...
Date Night: Not your average RomCom. I think this is the movie Alfred Hitchcock was trying to make when he slapped North by Northwest together.
Iron Man 2: Keep them coming. Please.
Can't go wrong with Michael Murphey's "Wildfire," too.
Run For the Roses Fogelberg
Commanche the Brave Horse by Johnny Horton
Tennessee Stud by Johnny Cash
Rider in the Rain by Randy Newman
Silver Stallion by The Highwaymen
Also, not really a song about horses, but according to a story about Gene Autry, he is supposed to have written "Here Comes Santa Claus" while riding in a parade and listening to the hoof beats of the horses.
firecoco, on 05 May 2012 - 02:21 PM, said:
Up until I was a teenager, I thought that was a Neil Young song. And since I couldn't stand Neil Young, I couldn't stand the song. But I don't turn the station when it comes on anymore, so that's progress.
horseman, on 05 May 2012 - 02:37 PM, said:
Liz, on 05 May 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:
It's a beautiful song.
ggardner, on 05 May 2012 - 01:21 PM, said:
firecoco, on 05 May 2012 - 02:21 PM, said:
Does Ghost Riders in the Sky count?
'The White Horses is a 1965 television series co-produced by RTV Ljubljana (now RTV Slovenija) of Yugoslavia[1] and German TV (Südwestfunk). A dubbed version was broadcast in the United Kingdom from 1968, and repeated for many years afterwards'.
http://en.wikipedia....he_White_Horses
classic British tv Theme - The Adventures Of Black Beauty
http://www.youtube.c...e&v=HcNJ2RMOd3U
Adam Smithee, on 05 May 2012 - 06:41 PM, said:
Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey and more money.
As to horseracing...been a fan all my life. Go to the track whenever I can. Ever have a question...you can ask me. And yes I bet the race today and won some nice money. I'll Have Another has done well by me this year and wasn't going to get off of him just because some handicappers thought that other horses were better. He's a gutsy horse.
Lyndsey, on 05 May 2012 - 08:50 PM, said:
I saw he was a 15-1. Could it be the handicappers do that on purpose? Wait, what am I saying? If there's anyone trustworthy, it's professional gamblers. Kinda lost my head for a second.
Congrats, btw.
Wildfire
cobalt-blue, on 05 May 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:
What kind of thread would it be if I didn't give you guys an excuse to prove me wrong?
Mr. Naron, on 05 May 2012 - 09:05 PM, said:
Lyndsey, on 05 May 2012 - 08:50 PM, said:
Handicappers usually go with the favorite. Or the horse that they think the public will go with. Very seldom do they go with a longshot. Although there are some exceptions to that rule. And I don't think they do it on purpose. I just don't think they look at the same factors I look at.
Handicapping is a fun past time. It's a physics problem, a stat problem, with a lot of secondary factors thrown in. There is nothing like the feeling when you have seen a race run in your head..called all the segments of the race right and have the winner at the end.
The money is going into the bank..one more time before I die I want to go to the Kentucky Derby...and that is the seed money to go next year.
Horses...horses.....