The Kentucky Derby is Awesome! (If You Ignore All The Horses They Murder)

The Kentucky Derby is one of my favorite events of the year. It typically marks the beginning of the summer as people with far more money than I’ll ever make, fly into Kentucky wearing the most obnoxious hats ever crafted and pretending to enjoy mint juleps and shit. And if you’re hanging out with Wes Welker, you might get some molly.

Shout out to Patrick Mahomes and his wife—who looks like she bites—not only being in attendance down in Kentucky but gave the ‘Riders Up’ command that starts the festivities.

The 149th Kentucky Derby was won by Mage who takes home the first victory of this year’s triple crown.

Mage wins the Kentucky Derby!! 🏆#KyDerby pic.twitter.com/mNdxr9qa8N

— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 6, 2023

An absolutely thrilling win that just for a second distracted us from the fact that 7 horses died this week for no reason at all.

Wild On Ice
Chloe’s Dream
Freezing Point
Code of Kings
Parent’s Pride
Chasing Artie
Take Charge Briana

All seven horses died the week leading up to the derby or the actual day of, from random ominous injuries that led to them being dragged into the back of a horse ambulance and inevitably euthanized.

Two of the horse slaughters resulted in trainer, Saffie Joseph Jr, being suspended indefinitely due to the ‘highly unusual’ deaths of Parent’s Pride and Chasing Artie. And as much as I would love to turn this into a conspiracy about trainers intentionally slaughtering horses for insurance money, most of these horses died from completely random shit. Like, Code of Kings died because it became obsessed with the lights on the DJ Booth nearby causing it to flip in the stall and bleed out its mouth.

There’s no one major factor causing these injuries.

There are horses who get doped up so much that they become more steroids than horse. There are horses who have been bred so specifically for speed that their bones are made of paper mache. There are horses who simply can’t handle the larger crowd sizes. And then there’s whatever the fuck Saffie Joseph Jr is doing when no one’s watching.

Either way, it’s a problem. Congrats to Mage for the Kentucky Derby W. I have no faith that he’ll even survive to race in the Preakness considering all of these animals are a sneeze away from being euthanized.

I don’t know about you guys, but personally, it’s difficult for me to invest in an activity that results in the massacre of horses. I love baseball. I’d probably stop watching if 5-7 players died every week and Major League Baseball was just like “eh, it happens”.

But the Kentucky Derby generates around half a billion dollars so it’s not going anywhere. Maybe this is a good use of AI. We can watch computer-generated horses race each other and no one will be euthanized for accidentally stepping on a thumbtack or whatever. I’m putting all of my money on AI Secretariat next year.

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