American Pharoah – Chronicles of a Blogaholic

“Such an amazing horse.”
American Pharoah’s jockey
Victor Espinoza

Yesterday I watched the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the final big race of the year. When American Pharoah broke from the starting gate, his ears were forward through most of the race. If you’ve ever watched horse racing, normally horses ears are flat back, listening and concentrating on the job they need to get done.

Maybe American Pharoah’s ears were forward because of his ear plugs they use on him to drown out all the noise from the crowd. I like to believe he was running his heart out to the end of that finish line, lookin’ to make history in horse racing.

I watched the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes this year. I watched in awe as American Pharaoh won all these famous races with ease. With this Breeders’ Cup Classic victory, American Pharoah ended his racing life as the winner of 9 of 11 career starts and is the first horse to sweep the “Grand Slam” of racing. American Pharoah, galloping into history as a horse of a lifetime.

Shine On

“I call horses ‘divine mirrors’,
they reflect back the emotions you put in.
If you put in love and respect and
kindness and curiosity,
the horse will return that.”
Allan Hamilton

Victor Espinoza rides American Pharoah to win the 2015 Kentucky Derby.

Every year on the first Saturday of May, you can find me watching the Kentucky Derby. In more than a half a century I have missed only a handful of Derby races.

Sometimes I pick a winner. Sometimes I pick a loser. But, no matter what horse wins or loses it’s a great day, as long as no horse or rider was injured.

The Kentucky Derby’s first run for the roses was in 1875. Just three years before that first famous race, two men set out to prove whether all four feet of a horse were off the ground at full stride. The human eye could not break down the action of the horse, so the former governor of California, Leland Stanford, a businessman and race-horse owner, hired Eadweard Muybridge to prove his belief that a horses four hooves leave the ground at a gallop.

That’s how movies were invented. Who knows, if it wasn’t for Stanford’s love of the horse and Muybridge photographs of a galloping horse, there would be no movies. I like to think that the horse is responsible for the invention of movies. In fact, the horse has played a huge roll in the evolution of man. Because in my opinion, horses matter.

Shine On