I’ve always known that Thoroughbreds are loopy. You’d never see a Standardbred pull a stunt like this. 🙂 Having said that, I’m so betting a massively big chunk of money on this one in his next race. If he can run in any sort of a semblance of a straight line, he’ll win by a mile…literally. Make sure you watch the replay and pay particular attention to the head-on stretch view.
Hooves 
Holy cow, he’d have cleaned the floor with them if he’d stayed straight!
Got me again – I literally laughed so hard, well, never mind. That was hysterical!!! For the life of me I can’t see what caused the first bolt – was that a spook? The stretch ‘check-out’ immediately followed a left to right change – and then some! Holy crap, I’m still LMAO!! HUGE kudos to the jockey for riding it out, no irons, and under a photo finish! That was all kinds of crazy.
Haven’t we already had the discussion about multi-tasking, while reading something I post? I’m positive I’ve made an official, public announcement in that regard.
There are some horses who like to be out in front. I’ve run across trail horses that liked it better. But in a natural setting, the safest place when the herd is galloping flat out is somewhere in the middle. Which is why horse racing is all about the jockey’s skill, as this film proves.
Well that was sure an exciting start to my day. Hubby and I watched this and we were a hootin and a hollerin. If the jockey could get that horse to run in a straight line he would be another Secretariat. He sure did cover a lot of real estate!
Did anyone notice that the second dive to the right was right before a large shadow?? “If only I had a brain….”
Watched it again and you are correct blondemare, it was right before the big shadow, scary damned things.
So, I showed the non-horsey hubby the video this morning and right out of the gate he says, “Wow, there are a lot of shadows on the track.” (pfft!) Anyway, the horse has his ears pricked for most of the time, so he’s looking a lot. The first spook I think is a small bush right on the turn. The second one is definitely the big shadow across the track. I love that he went ‘behind and around’ the starting gate…thank goodness they left space between it and the fence…and of course some great riding by the jockey.
All kinds of crazy is right, blondemare. LOL!
Note to his trainer….early morning workouts might not be in his best interest. If she could get shadows to follow him I’d put him in the Classic! I’m still cracking up, that poor jockey!!
I trained a horse years ago that was afraid of shadows and I ride after work when they’re long and looming. He’d stop,dodge or jump them. It was damned unnerving because he was such a quiet horse in every other regard. He was also deaf (Overo Paint) and slept like he was dead. There is no end to the weirdness of working with horses. Thank you for this LOL!
They can be a quirky animal for sure. Took my sister’s fairly green Canadian gelding down the road a few weeks ago and he figured that climbing the snow bank was a better option than stepping over the crack in the pavement. You really have to laugh at them sometimes.
Last time it snowed, I was walking my mare up to the barn. Walking from grass onto the snow? No problem. Walking over snow? No problem. Walking from snow back onto grass again? The apocalypse is nye.
My gelding did the same thing this winter after 2′ of snow….except there was no crack in the road. Geldings….!
My old OTTB was afraid of white horses for a long time, until I moved to “The Old Gray Mare Farm”…they raised Arabians. You guessed it, all grays. He got over that eventually. Then he decided that if the ground moved beneath his feet that the world was going to end. On a trail ride one day he stepped on a loose patch of sand and did his best impression of a fainting goat. Fortunately, he’s tall enough I had time to hop off before he hit the ground!
Shades of Devon Loch there, and they never did find out what got into his head! No shadows, although it was so long ago all pictures are in black and white- Dick Francis was riding, btw and he could not work out what happened. If you Google it it is up on You Tube I just do not know where….
As a whacky racing thing, yea they are that, but I always thought Devon Loch’s was because there was such a loud roar from the crowd, and the horse just flopped. I think what makes this video here so different is the skill of the jockey.
I would agree there- it was brilliant riding. But for me the commentator just made the show- we do not get commentators like that here. They do get excited but in a very staged way and I just do not know how they would react to something like this happening…..I would pay to hear it though!!
The commentator was beside himself! ‘that was a WILD ride!” The way his voice kept breaking as he refrained from giggling!! I literally can’t stop laughing over this one!! Freaking funny.
Oh, and they never did find out what did for Devon Loch- it was not the crowd, I watched a full hour programme on it and there was no sudden crowd noise. Best guess was that the horse was exhausted and just thought there was another jump there, when there wasn’t! Poor fellow…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tXNVtxIxtP8 Poor horse looks exhausted and overwhelmed.
There was a horse in for training at my barn that had some sort of eye issue- moon blindness?- and she would crank her head looking at every shadow or discolored dirt in the arena because her depth perception was off and she couldn’t tell where exactly things were. Perhaps that was part of the horse’s problem? Impressive running, though.
That was absolutely hilarious! The horse kinda checked out for a moment, but a great jockey brought him back to get second. He was all like “Screw you guys, I am going home” instead of crossing that shadow, or whatever it was that he spooked at. I couldnt stop laughing………..
Too funny, laughed my head off. It reminded me of when show horses know exactly where the out gate is.
“I see my exit, stage right!”
That was hilarious!
I do a lot of endurance racing and sometimes Flash will just get in “the zone”… where the trotting gets very swingy and rhythmic and we both get kinda hypnotic. Then all of a sudden he will notice a rock (or tree, or shadow, or leaf… he’s an arab, it doesn’t take much) and boy do those spooks take me by surprise. Luckily, I’ve had him so long that my body instinctively knows how to ride those out. Well, for the most part anyway… once in a while ass and saddle do part ways 🙂