Day 227

While it mostly stays hidden beneath the surface, horse racing has it's own lunatic fringe that sometimes rears it's ugly head, often for no readily apparent reason. While I certainly would not criticize anyone for taking the path less traveled in a sport where the worn path leads to losses 95% of the time, you occasionally run across people who are just plain nuts. The one factor that seems to link many of these crazies together is they usually don't have enough money to do things the proper way. They are either looking for a handout or have some elaborate plan that has them winning far more than even the most successful participants of the sport.

People who believe an ill-bred, poorly conformed 4 year old maiden will not only become the finest son of his fairly obscure sire but will also become a wildly successful sire as well, actually exist. They will beg for a deal on the training fees because they have been "screwed over" in the business. Then when the horse in question turns out to be a complete bust, not only being a rogue that attacks people and other horses but who can't stay sound for more than a few weeks at a time. Of course it is hard to try to deal with unsoundness when all the vets on the track refuse to treat or even examine the horse because they believe him to be too dangerous to bother with after he sent one person to the hospital with broken ribs and came close to killing another. Then when you are shipping the barn out of town for the Winter, refuse to take the horse back because they claim not to have the facilities to house him, more or less leaving the trainer to come up with a new home for him. After the same trainer not only finds a safe home for the horse, he pays the bills when the insane people forget to bother to. As if this wasn't bad enough, three years later they contact the trainer looking to shake him down because he doesn't recall where their silks or some therapy machine that they supposedly sent with the horse is. When questioned as to why it took so long to inquire about these items the nuts say that they couldn't locate the trainer despite being "facebook friends" for 2 years and virtually every racetrack in the country having the trainers contact information which hasn't changed in 10 years. The wackos then proceed to berate the trainer personally and professionally, telling him that it is "his job" to take care of his owners "stuff", as though the trainer is some equine pawn shop. Remember now these are people who never sent a single cent to the trainer despite the trainer not only cutting them a sweetheart training deal but also found a good home for their insane horse AND paid his expenses (7 or 8 months worth I believe) as well. Now they were looking for the trainer to reimburse them for their "stuff" three years later? You can't make this crap up...

I guess the moral of the story is whoever said "no good deed goes unpunished" was 100% correct.