Summer has officially arrived here in Tennessee. The weather has been balmy and beautiful, and I was able to spend a lovely week with my mother and grandparents galavanting through the Smokies (pictures to follow eventually).
I absolutely adore summer, though it's making me desperately miss my Beastie. So, I decided to do an A to Z of all of my favorite horse-related things... with pictures!
Monday, May 21, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Scared of Girls ...
I'd consider myself a "mare person." Most of my best horse-relationships have been with mares. I've always felt that nothing beats a mare for heart if you make the connection with her.
I'm sitting here "studying" for contracts and watching the Derby Pre-show, wondering why it is that you hardly ever see any fillies in the Derby. I know some people think it's because the boys are faster, but I don't think that's the case at all. Like I said, if you have the right relationship with a mare, I submit that she can out-try any colt there is. Here's my thought as to why you don't see more champion fillies: they just aren't as profitable as a champion colt, so why enter them in a prestigious race like the Derby?
If your colt wins the Derby, he's a super star that you can now breed to lots of mares in one year, for exorbitant prices. If your filly wins the derby, she's a super star that can have 1 foal every year, if that. Sure, your filly might have won you tons of money in races, but she won't earn you as much as a colt once she's retired. Maybe I'm just being crazy, but it's the only reasonable explanation I can come up with, considering that I don't believe the fillies are inherently slower than the colts. I think that at the end of the day, it makes money-sense to just run the girls against the girls, because when she has a foal, you can say "look how much better she is than all the other mares who foaled this year AND look at her Derby-winning dad!"
For the record, I think Zenyatta outclasses and could outrun the best of the boys (and she and Dee share a granddaddy, which makes me love her more).
Anyway, I'm just babbling on at this point. That's just my 2 cents... 2 biased cents.
I'm sitting here "studying" for contracts and watching the Derby Pre-show, wondering why it is that you hardly ever see any fillies in the Derby. I know some people think it's because the boys are faster, but I don't think that's the case at all. Like I said, if you have the right relationship with a mare, I submit that she can out-try any colt there is. Here's my thought as to why you don't see more champion fillies: they just aren't as profitable as a champion colt, so why enter them in a prestigious race like the Derby?
If your colt wins the Derby, he's a super star that you can now breed to lots of mares in one year, for exorbitant prices. If your filly wins the derby, she's a super star that can have 1 foal every year, if that. Sure, your filly might have won you tons of money in races, but she won't earn you as much as a colt once she's retired. Maybe I'm just being crazy, but it's the only reasonable explanation I can come up with, considering that I don't believe the fillies are inherently slower than the colts. I think that at the end of the day, it makes money-sense to just run the girls against the girls, because when she has a foal, you can say "look how much better she is than all the other mares who foaled this year AND look at her Derby-winning dad!"
For the record, I think Zenyatta outclasses and could outrun the best of the boys (and she and Dee share a granddaddy, which makes me love her more).
Anyway, I'm just babbling on at this point. That's just my 2 cents... 2 biased cents.
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