The Pull of the Horse

I saw a tweet from @thorotrends the other day and he said something like 'twitter is not doing a perfect job, but it is a good medium for horse fans'.

It always amazes me. When you talk about the horse, or horses, or their care, or retirement, or anything along those lines, social media explodes.

Yesterday, we had some chatter about the Drunken Spider needing a new post-race career, after I saw a tweet from @railbird notifying me of it. She knows I liked that horse and bet on him a few times, and had some fun with his name on twitter when he raced. I wrote a post asking folks to share the info of this cool horse and his quest for a long term home and that was that.

Not long after, I log in to see my hits through the roof. Retweets, more retweets, some Facebook hits and all the rest. In two hours it is probably my most popular post of the week in terms of traffic.

An hour or two after that I beg for a few more retweets and my twitter friends respond; the Baconator, Dan, Sid, Connie and too many to mention. Traffic goes up again. Not only that, Dan and a few others offer some donations to Canter NE, the retirement group that hosts the horsefinder webpage where the Drunken Spider is being advertised.

I guess I should not be surprised. People who love the horse - handicappers, bettors, trainers, grooms, fans, horse lovers, farm folks; the list is seemingly endless - seem to be everywhere. Whether its those who raised money in the name of Monzante, or Caroline Betts needing signups to a webpage to get a grant for non-profits, which her rescue is, to back before twitter was even around for the "Friends of Barbaro", it's just the way the community is. It's something rare in racing: A Same Page.

The horse is a cool beast. They've been around for awhile. They've mowed fields to feed families, fought wars and built railroads to help settle the west. They've delivered mail, been companions, given us thrills on the racetrack, and supplied a lot of people with a relaxing ride after a tough day at the daily grind.  I honestly believe that bond, forged and fostered through generations, is as strong as any human-animal bond you'll see.