WHY THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR RACING
The other day I received an e-mail from a young lady, 18 years old, commenting on an article I had written for ESPN.com in the wake of Big Brown’s defeat in the Belmont Stakes. The passion with which she wrote about the sport reminded me that racing always has and always will have tremendous appeal because of one thing: the horse. As long as the people in racing don’t completely mess things up, there is still hope for racing. The young lady, Emily Patton, said it would be OK to share her email with readers of the Paulick Report:
I just finished reading your article on ESPN.com, and sincerely enjoyed it.
I am an 18 year old girl who fell in love with horse racing as a 12-year-old: a 12-year-old girl falling in love with a sport that attracts many with serious addictions, involving smoking, gambling, and drinking.
I would race to the television to watch Bob Baffert’s horses, watching Real Quiet and Silver Charm race for the crown. I cannot tell you how upset my parents were as I begged them to please, please let me go watch the races. When Smarty Jones came around in 2004, I was sold. I had hit rock bottom. I was in love with a horse.
My parents couldn’t deny it, buying me Blood-Horse after Blood-Horse that had Smarty on the cover.
I plainly want to say, your article is the absolute truth. Every year I choose a Derby horse. I pick it early, around February, and see if “my” horse can do it. I slowly become attached, and by the time they are driving down the stretch at Churchill, I am on my feet, screaming.
I pick a horse who can handle the distance. I like closers, I don’t like horses that go to the lead. I like Kentucky breds. I like a horse with non-corporate owners. And the list continues… I didn’t pull for Big Brown this year, well prior to the Derby at least.
I was alive one month before Secretariat passed away, about ten years before Seattle Slew went, and my gosh, I cannot tell you how I would have loved to be around for the 12th triple crown winner to parade in front of me. I thought, “For once, a team is doing it the right way with a horse in the Triple Crown: racing him lightly before, not running too huge in the Preakness…”
I was getting excited. I even called a sports radio station the morning of the Belmont, excited, talking about how he would do it. I convinced myself that the Sport of Kings, would be that again. I don’t know how I fell in love with horse-racing. I don’t know why as a young teenage girl I found it more appealing to memorize all the Derby winners instead of chase boys around. I don’t know.
Big Brown did what he could.
Thank you for the enjoyment.
–Emily Patton
Let’s hope there are a lot more Emily Pattons out there, young people who bring such passion to our great sport.
Tags: Big Brown, Bob Baffert, Emily Patton, Horse Racing, Paulick Report, Ray Paulick, Real Quiet, Silver Charm, Smarty Jones, Triple Crown
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
So Emily got into the game six years ago (2002) but remembers with fondness watching Silver Charm and Real Quiet five years before that? That’s some fuzzy math.
And glad to know Emily has the Triple Crown all figured out. Boy, team Big Brown sure did it the right way, didn’t they? That last-place finish in the Belmont (the worst ever by a Triple Crown aspirant) sure showed all the Bafferts and Van Bergs and Delps who had tried in vein before, and denigrating John Servis Belmont week was nothing but class.
Good luck getting a lightly raced horse to win the Triple Crown. It won’t happen.
Also nice to see her refer to the sport as one that attracts those with “serious addictions involving smoking, gambling, and drinking” although I would have thrown porn in there too. Overheard at Tri-State Greyhound Park: “I have all three vices: the drinkin’ the gamblin’ and the rubbin’”
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Ed, you are so smart and glad you got the dates right in your head. However, I think she said she fell in love in 2002, with yet another Baffert horse winning the Derby that year as well, War Emblem. Usually, the first stage is LIKE and then LOVE. Also, espn classic, books, videos are available for use by the public. Wow, I bet she even knows something about Citation (1948) but yet she wasn’t born. Fuzzy math, I guess!
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
“I like a horse with non-corporate owners”.
I’m afraid the young lady is gonna find fewer and fewer animals to root for if she insists on that restriction.
TvNB
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Ed, the girl is eighteen years old. It seems you have some issues that you need help with, but don’t take them out on a new fan. Ray is right in holding her up as an example of why there is still hope in this business. I was once in Emily’s shoes, only I was fortunate enough to see Secretariat, Seattle Slew & Affirmed. Years later, I’m still here, even though I’ve watched the sport I love fall into this horrible decline. No matter what you or others may say to denigrate Emily’s feelings, I hope she hangs in there and continues to support the sport!
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:49 am
Great! Let’s get a thousand more fans like her that bet $0 while doing everything possible to run off anybody that wants to bet serious money and win (or have a chance to win) by raising takeout + blocking signals.
Racing is a gambling game…..let’s not forget that.
June 23rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Ray, why don’t you email Emily and invite her to Kentucky to visit some farms where she can see some of the horses that she has fallen in love with. That would surely keep her enthusiasm. She might encourage others’ passions as well.
June 23rd, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Hi everyone. I thank you for reading, and I thank you for the criticism, but I must be brutally honest, I never actually believed my letter to Ray would be read, even by himself when I wrote it. I read his article, typed it in five minutes, and went on my way, shocked to see a reply in my inbox the next day.
All I really wanted to project from my letter to Ray was that if I could fall for the sport, then others could too. And maybe it does not have to be about the smoking, drinking, and gambling, and (yes, perhaps pornography included, as Ed noted) side of the track. Those are the last things I think about when I grab a Daily Racing Form at Ellis with my friends, and put a few dollars down on a filly to win the mile because she is bred out of Elusive Quality, and we all know, he could handle the mile, and Smarty even got the mile and a fourth, so she might have something left in the tank. And I may be the naive little girl who believes that she can go to church on Sundays, coming home to turn on TVG to see what the analysts are thinking today, and not be a walking contradiction. Maybe, just maybe it can just be about the horse. And to me and my friends, there is nothing else. It is just about the horse.
And thank you for suggesting that Priscilla, but I actually live in Kentucky, and I love it. I actually took a trip to Three Chimneys and saw “my” Smarty Jones. A few years back, I asked my parents for my sixteenth birthday, instead of the traditional, “Can I have a car?” I asked if I could go to Churchill Downs for the day to see the Kentucky Derby musuem, and I was actually blessed with the odd chance of running into John and Pat Chapman, who were the nicest people I have ever met.
Thank you again. God bless.