{"id":5444,"date":"2014-05-02T01:59:42","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T01:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=5444"},"modified":"2014-05-02T01:59:42","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T01:59:42","slug":"waiting-for-the-next-big-horse-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5444","title":{"rendered":"Waiting for the next big horse race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Secretariat Belmont Stakes 1973 &amp; extended coverage (HD Version - NEW!)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vfCMtaNiMDM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Horse-racing buffs know that this is Kentucky Derby weekend.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not one of them. I&#8217;ve never really gotten into horse racing, let alone betting on the ponies. As for racing&#8217;s Triple Crown, well, I don&#8217;t care much about that, either.<\/p>\n<p>Except when a certain thing happens. I begin to care about when the same horse wins the first two races of the Triple Crown: the Derby and the Preakness.<\/p>\n<p>Then comes the Belmont Stakes and that is when I get interested. I usually tune in to the final Triple Crown race to see if the Derby and Preakness winner can win the Triple Crown.<\/p>\n<p>The first time I got really interested in this three-horse event occurred in 1973, when Secretariat astounded the world by winning the Belmont Stakes &#8212; and the Triple Crown &#8212; in utterly astonishing fashion. (See link attached to this blog and you&#8217;ll see what I mean.)<\/p>\n<p>Of all the great stories and observations about that race I&#8217;ve heard, my favorite came from jockey Ron Turcotte.<\/p>\n<p>As Secretariat galloped into the home stretch, Turcotte has said, he noticed he couldn&#8217;t hear any other horse noises; no horses grunting, no hooves pounding &#8230; only the sound of his own horse&#8217;s hooves pounding along at a record pace.<\/p>\n<p>It was then that Turcotte turned around and saw that Secretariat was running all alone. The second-place horse was about 20 lengths back. I should add that at no point in the race did Turcotte hit his horse with the whip jockeys use to make their beasts run faster.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure some folks will get all excited about the Kentucky Derby. I&#8217;ll get excited if the Derby&#8217;s winner pulls off another win at the Preakness.<\/p>\n<p><em>Then<\/em> I&#8217;ll get excited.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Horse-racing buffs know that this is Kentucky Derby weekend. I&#8217;m not one of them. I&#8217;ve never really gotten into horse racing, let alone betting on the ponies. As for racing&#8217;s Triple Crown, well, I don&#8217;t care much about that, either. Except when a certain thing happens. I begin to care about when the same horse &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5444\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Waiting for the next big horse race<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[583,2663,3696,4012,4172,4915],"class_list":["post-5444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-belmont-stakes","tag-kentucky-derby","tag-preakness","tag-ron-turcotte","tag-secretariat","tag-triple-crown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}