The Jockey Club, the leading sanctioning body in what’s left of the sport of horse racing in the U.S., sent out a clear message Wednesday to anybody thinking of naming their horse after Hitler: Don’t name your horse after Hitler.
The two-year-old colt Austrian Painter made his racing debut Monday with a win in the third race at Horseshoe Indianapolis Racecourse. Obligatory: He covered the 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:04.97, and paid $9.00. Afterward, the Jockey Club received objections about the victorious newcomer, but these weren’t the standard post-race protests about a jockey’s obstructing or dangerous ride or a horse’s drug abuse. No, these complaints were about the horse’s name. Because, as reported by ESPN in its Austrian Painter story, “Hitler was born in Austria and was an artist.”
What does this mean, I wonder.
Seems like horse racing is getting less and less popular over time. Most racetracks I know of near me have slots and other gaming machines in them now, and I bet the slots subsidize the horse racing.
Ah, makes sense.
At the same time, the actual owning and racing of horses seems like mostly a rich peoples’ sport, so I wonder how that’s working for them…
It’s a special K shaped economy.
Wasn’t that a… outdated breakfast-cereal, or something?
(good luck if there’s a whole economy based around that disaster, lol)
Fun facts: (AKA explain the joke, making it less funny to some, but more funny to me)
Special K is also slang for ketamine, a drug popular with some high profile oligarchs and other elites.
So the “K” in K-shaped economy (wealth divergence) and the “K” in Special K (ketamine) land on the same social group *the ultra-wealthy on the top arm of the K * making the letter a convenient pun for commentary on inequality and privilege.
Huh!
In the state of California, the handles and starts are down over 55% in the last 26 years with an average of -3.4% YOY. The industry also kills an average of 1.5 horses per week for the last 6 years, just at the tracks in California alone.
I’m intentionally leaving out the 2019 fatalities, as that year would push the average above 2.25 horses dead per week, and was a bit of an outlier.
Basically, the industry is dying, and the tracks are more valuable as developable land.
#KillRacingNotHorses
Damn… really?
Thank you for explaining, in any case.