Halls of the Dark Muse

I was very excited about The Preakness Stakes
becasue I was really pulling for Animal Kingdom to win, the winner of the Kentucky Derby becasue for one I thought it was really cool that in the Derby no one really expected him to do anything. He wasn't considered or seen as worth mentioning and had very high odds. So I liked the fact that he came out of nowhere and won.

And there has not been a Triple Crown winner in a long time. For those who are not familair, a Triple Crown is a horse that wins all three races. The Derby, the Preakness and The Belmont. So I thought it would be cool if Animal Kingdom could be the next Triple Crowner, not only becasue it is about time for a new one, but also he just has such a great name for a Triple Crown horse I think.

In addition to the fact the more I learned of his owner and trainer the more I really liked them. They seem to truly be interested in what is best for the horse in thier training techniques and the owner is known to be really outspoken against some of the more ethically questionable practices in horse training.

Apparently there is a big problem with the use of drugs in the horse races, a lot like what happened with steroids in baseball, and the trainer of Animal Kingdom is British and in Britain and other parts of the world they do have much stricter regulations about the use of drugs and controlling the drug problem than in the states, and Animal Kingdom's owner, wishes the FBI would come in and get involved and really get the problem under control.

So anyway they seemed cool and I really liked them and so I was really hoping they would win.

Even though I don't bet or anything on the races and just watch for the pure enjoyment of doing so I was feeling really nervous about what would happen in the race, but I was optimistic that this may be it. I had a good vibe about it, but I was nervous about the fact that winning the derby made Animal Kingdom a favorite.

For whatever reason, be it coincidence, over confidence, a twist of fate, favorites rarely acutally win. When the announcers state that they think a particular horse is going to win, it usually is a bad sign. I always want to say hello? If you really want the horse to win, just shut up and pick another horse.

So the race starts right when it gets to that critical point Animal Kingdom makes his move and jets out ahead and starts coming up on the current lead horse, and for the home stretch he keeps gaining and gaining and gaining, and if he only had just a little longer her could have done it, but he fell just short and ended up in second place.