An Interesting 24 hours

The last day was pretty exciting, albeit disappointing of course.

Twitter showed it's worth early on, when Scott Hazelton mentioned there were rumors that IHA was going to be scratched. Not long after this was confirmed.

Then the fun started, where twitter can show, well, not-its-worth.

The scratch was NYRA's fault. Follow me on this. If they hadn't have screwed up the takeout thing, Charlie would not have been fired, the NYSRWB would never have put in the D barn, and I'll Have Another wouldn't have been in the detention barn, he would not have kicked a stall, and he would've won the Triple Crown. NYRA is responsible for ruining it for everyone.

Damn that NYRA!

If you didn't like that one. It was a security guard's fault. If there wasn't a guy watching I'll Have Another, Evil Doug would've been able to give him a giant needle, filled with rocket fuel, and he would've won. Knowing that this pesky guard wouldn't look away for a minute, Doug could not use the needle, and without the needle IHA is like a 5 claimer at Mountaineer, so he was scratched. The guys name is "Bob" and he lives in Queens. Send your hate mail to him for ruining the Triple Crown.

There were others; plenty of conspiracy theories. It was a really interesting day.

People want to blame something on someone, or something, or some organization. I realize that is the way society is today, but in horse racing it is probably exacerbated. We have little structure and the public does not trust us. The participants don't seem to care much for change either. A lot of it is branding. Things like post-race testing, detention barns, etc are probably good for the public perception of the sport, but we've got 100+ years of bias to tackle. It certainly won't change overnight.

Yesterday a horse stretched a tendon and he was scratched. It happens probably every day.  There's no need to blame anyone, anything, or any organization. Stuff happens.

I hope everyone has a good Belmont Stakes day today. And remember tonight - some of the very best colts we've seen in a long time head off in the North America Cup elims, at Mohawk.