I knew about Calvin Borel the rider but not Calvin Borel the writer. Borel, the winner of this year’s Kentucky Derby aboard Mine That Bird and the Kentucky Oaks and Preakness aboard the filly Rachel Alexandra, has come out in support of video lottery terminal legislation (VLTs, or slots) that is being considered at the special session of the Kentucky legislature called by Gov. Steve Beshear. The special session begins next Monday.
The following op-ed, signed by Borel, is being distributed by the public relations firm hired by the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP). – Ray Paulick
Ever since I was a young boy, all I have ever wanted to do is ride race horses. I grew up in Louisiana, but 12 years ago I moved to Kentucky to be in the middle of the horse racing and breeding capital of the world. Since then, I have seen success I could have never dreamed of—riding horses like Street Sense, Mine That Bird and Rachel Alexandra and winning the Kentucky Oaks, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
I get to work at Churchill Downs at 6 a.m. to work horses and help my older brother, Cecil, who is a trainer. I love being around the horses, and I love being around the hard-working people who make up this industry. While the public may see me ride in the afternoon for a few minutes at a time, I know that a great deal of my success comes from the efforts of the people on the backside of the track who spend many hours each day, seven days a week with the horses.
There are reasons that Kentucky has been recognized as number one. We have strong race tracks and internationally known races which provide a year round circuit. We have the finest breeding farms and horses in the world. And, we have outstanding horsemen and women who take care of the horses. No other state has this foundation, but Kentucky is at a crossroads. Our position as the best is slipping. Every other state in the region now helps fund their purses and breeders’ awards with money from alternative forms of gaming.
Let us compete. The Governor has called a special session to address VLT’s at the state’s tracks. If it doesn’t pass soon, then we will fall way behind, and those hard-working people all over Kentucky who take care of the horses will have to relocate to other states.
Sincerely,
Calvin Borel
Tags: Calvin Borel, churchill downs, horse racing and breeding, keep, kentucky derby, kentucky equine education project, kentucky horse industry, kentucky oaks, mine that bird, Paulick Report, Rachel Alexandra, Ray Paulick, slots at kentucky racetracks, steve beshear, vlt legislation, vlts
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June 8th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Maybe Calvin penned this on Saturday afternoon while hanging around the Belmont jocks room with a whole bunch of time on his hands.
June 8th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Let’s not get lost in authorship, but be grateful for the message. Do you know who wrote Shakespeare’s 36 plays and hundred plus sonnets? Was it William Shakespeare? Was it Christopher Marlowe? Was it both of them in collaboration? Do we care? ….. or are we just thankful those works were written to make our quality of life better?
June 8th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Thank you Calvin.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Amen Brother. I would rather have a ghost-written Calvin Borel lending his name to something equine — in this case a critical issue for those of us in the trenches (the future of Kentucky racing) — than some Bluegrass Blueblood flacking for gaming. This is huge Calvin rocks.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Kudos to KEEP for this resourcefulness. It’s about time we got the jocks and someone outside of the Golden Triangle involved. Suppose we had Alex Waldrop or Greg Avioli doing the pitch from the throne (much less “Bob Evans). I suppose the latter would work for hotcakes. Anyone who thinks otherwise doth protest too much, methinks.
PS. My money is on Christopher Marlowe.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
As WS might have put it: “A nod, is as good as a wink - to a blind horse”. A ‘modern’ would write: “Some people never get the message.” As Rob Whiteley noted, “….be grateful for the message.”
Read the message. His secretary got it all down, verbatim, as he said the words. There is nothing in it that Calvin could not have said.
Personally, I feel it is the wrong message. I’m not a member of our local Taliban (i.e., no sinning on Sunday) but slots are not the answer to our problems. The proposed distribution of the “millions” appears to include a chunk for ‘Breed Registries’ !!!!!!
Does that mean we are going to give money to The Jockey Club - where the Chief Executive takes home close to a million a year !?!?!?!?
If you want to see a State-run disaster, look no further than the KY Breeders Incentive Plan.
Sen. Williams’s alternative proposal has many good features. His plan deserves as much discussion and consideration as the rush to slot machines.
June 8th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
It was Irish author and dramatist, Brendan Behan who said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.†Let’s hope this is not applicable tof the Kentucky horse industry.
Shakespeare. Maybe not even Christopher Marlowe but rather Roger Bacon?
June 8th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
I challenge KEEP and its PR mercenaries to put Calvin Borel in a room and ask him to write an essay on anything without it being edited.
He’s a great guy but he couldn’t speak a coherent paragraph…much less write one.
It really shows the lack of class of the KEEP leadership to put Borel in such a humiliating situation.
Maybe KEEP’s next move will be an editorial supposedly written by a horse.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Hey Billy, I hate to point out that you are the one who is attempting to humiliate Calvin Borel, not KEEP or anyone else. Calvin sounds pretty good in the radio commercial. Good for him for taking a stand.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Mr. Redmond - what “rush” to slot machines? Surely you must be aware that they’ve been under consideration for years.
Senator Williams’ plan depends on taxes and tax increases. So exactly how does the Williams plan secure the industry’s future in Kentucky? Even supposing the people of Kentucky approve new taxes and the re-allocation of existing taxes away from their current uses - which is unlikely - there’s absolutely no guarantee that future governors and legislators will continue to allocate tax money as Williams proposes doing. Future governors and legislators will have their own priorities and then what happens to an industry made entirely dependent on tax dollars by the Williams plan?
Slots will provide KY tracks with a permanent source of revenue, independent of politics and politicians.
The Williams plan is similar to various plans suggested at various times by the anti-slots forces in Maryland whose real goal was to block slots at any cost, even at the cost of killing racing in Maryland - a goal which they’re close to achieving, by the way.