She Runs Like A Girl
May 19, 2009
by Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy
|Cross posted with permission from No Quarter.
Rachel Alexandra, that is. Here is her performance in the Kentucky Oaks this year (the big filly race the day before the Derby):
The jockey, Calvin Borel, never had to do a thing – she just ran, but never into her top gear. Even still, she won by twenty lengths. Her breeder and co-owner at the time of the Kentucky Oaks, when asked if he had considered running her in the Derby said:
No sir, the Triple Crown races are to showcase the future stallions of our industry and fillies should run with fillies and stallions with stallions.
Ah, yes – sexism is most definitely alive and well in the sport of horse-racing. No doubt about that.
Well, on Saturday, at Pimlico, in the running of the Preakness, Rachel Alexandra ran with the boys. There was a lot of debate about her doing so, and a couple of the owners, including one of Mind That Bird’s, wanted her excluded on a technicality, even considering running another one of his horses to keep her out.
But another owner, a woman, Marylou Whitney, stepped in to clear the way (basically, she said she would pull her horse to let Rachel Alexandra take his place). She was allowed to run, and run she did. For the first time since 1924, a filly won the Preakness, the first horse EVER to win from the 13th position, and only the 11th filly ever to win a Triple Crown event. Oh, her jockey, Calvin Borel, chose HER over riding the Kentucky Derby winner, Mind That Bird, again, even though Borel was the one who guided him to that win. Why? As he sad after winning the Oaks:
She’s probably the greatest horse I’ve ever been on in my life. There are other things down the road for her and she’ll prove it, I promise it. This filly she breaks out of the gate and she’s like ‘Bring it on, let’s go!’
The Kentucky Oaks was Borel’s 900th win – I think he knows a thing or two about horses. And was he ever right. He called it, too, before the race – he said she would do this. Here she is proving him right:
After the race, which she won by a length, her jockey said she did not like the track surface, and was having problems with it. But she STILL won. That pretty much says it all.
Well, actually, maybe this does: Simply The Best (Tina Turner’s original video of the song. Click it and see how appropriate this really is! Sorry the embed has been disabled.)
Has this always been an issue? I’ve never heard it before.
Rachael was about as big as the studs, an area of concern is the simple fact that most fillies are smaller than studs and with less weight and gettting bumped during a race increases a chance of stumbling which often results in the animal being put down and the jockey hurt. It is more a matter of biology than sexism, though Walt Disney and his kind would have us to believe there are neighs of objection coming from the stables over the lack of racing equity, such is not the real issue. The former owners attitude does smack of sexism in general but again, I doubt the fillies are saying much about it. He obviously was not much of a judge of horse flesh and is gnashing his teeth now over the money he could have obtained from her colts. The fastest horse I ever rode was a 20 yr. old Arabian mare who beat a 4 yr old gelding quarter horse in a half mile sprint on a gravel road by about 4 lengths.
I heard on the news that there is greater gender parity in Europe and Asia as compared with USA, and racing fillies is not so rare as in the USA.
Goesh, they always say that about all female animals, including humans, up until it’s proven wrong and mot nearly as important as people think it is.
The best 100m dash racers are neither sumo wrestlers nor basketball players, so body size doesn’t matter nearly as much as people think, even in humans. And in longer races, stamina matters more than burst strength, and female animals of all kinds are known for outlasting males, whose larger body bulk causes them to tire out faster.
Not to mention that horse racing isn’t about records; the only measure is beating the other horses on the field that day. (Records aren’t a good measure given how much race times depend on track surface, weather conditions, as well as what happens on the track itself. Also these are colts and fillies, not adult horses.) While the fastest horses ever are probably all stallions/colts/geldings (Secretariat’s Belmont record may never be broken), those records don’t matter in the scheme of things, giving fillies a great chance to be in the mix.
Every time I watch this race, I always think of Hillary! She ran with the boys and said “bring it on” and won against the greatest odds (let’s not forget, Hillary won the popular vote and was the people’s choice)! Too bad the best filly is not in the WH proving that she was the best one in the race!
http://horseracing.about.com/o.....illies.htm
“Only 39 fillies have Run for the Roses in the 134 runnings of the Kentucky Derby so far. In 2008, trainer Larry Jones sent Eight Belles to the Kentucky Derby and she finished second to Big Brown, but tragically broke both ankles about a quarter mile after the race was finished and had to be euthanized………………………..
giving us a total of just nine in-the-money finishers out of 38 starters.”
Horses are horses, people are people
FOX lists the top 10 women athletes who have competed against the men but they start off with Rachael the horse – women jockeys in horse racing don’t get any attention/publicity. One commentator mentioned Julie Krone, in the thoroughbred hall of fame who won the Belmont and took a couple of other titles and won the Breeders Cup against men. Katie Hnida the woman kicker in football is mentioned. Hayley Wickenheim who plays pro hockey with the men is mentioned. Candace Parker, the first woman to dunk a basketball the the college level is mentioned, etc, etc.
None of these names are known to the general Public, what a shame.
Funny how no one mentions Billie Jean King or Babe Didrickson. Didrickson was the Michael Jordan of her time: a flawless athlete who could do almost anything.
And I still remember the husbands in our little enclave of working-class suburban pretenders laughing at my dad in the 70s when he said that King was going to murder that loudmouthed dipshit Bobby Riggs. “He’s 55,” he said. “She’s gonna kill him.” All the other grownup men in the neighborhood laughed at him. They stopped. :->
Leave your Response Want an avatar? Get a gravatar!
Community Room
February 6, 2012 at 4:25 pm
January 30, 2012 at 2:36 pm
January 26, 2012 at 4:38 pm
January 23, 2012 at 1:04 pm
January 15, 2012 at 11:37 am
January 9, 2012 at 6:36 pm
January 7, 2012 at 10:10 pm
January 5, 2012 at 9:31 am
BUILD your NETWORK
Our Network of College Women
Protecting our Teenage Girls
We’re in the Media »
Click to see our latest stories in the media
More Stories »Recent Comments
The Latest from our Blog
Archives
Pioneer Mentors
Blogroll
Find us Online
Subscribe Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS)
The New Agenda is a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls by bringing about systemic change in the media, at the workplace, at school and at home. More...