Zoooom

Quarter Horses at Canterbury Park. From the, shall we say, hot seat.

Apparently this jockey likes to yell ;).

Ow...

...sometimes racehorses just don't like that starting gate. Really don't like it...

Whewf...

This could have been so much worse.. Nasty starting gate malfunction.

Scary!

Even scarier than my riding incident yesterday - I got taken off with. By a draft cross who was kind of mad with me for making her do her job. That's worse, though. Apparently the jockey was not seriously harmed.

Lighting the afterburners

Wow...

How did this horse win the race? And how much would he have won by if his jockey had gone around the outside of traffic...

Shire vs. Clydesdale!

I think the Shire is winning...

This is...

...sportsmanship.

You have to watch it fairly carefully, but the jockey in the yellow silks loses his reins, a disaster in a horse race. (It could have caused a wreck). The jockey in the pastels uses his whip to push them back towards his hands.

Novice Hurdlers....

...prove they're novice.

Oops.

No serious injuries to horse or rider.

Fast Ears

I'm not sure about nailing the numbers to the shaft while the cart is attached to the donkey, but they look to be having some fun ;).

(No, they aren't underweight. How often do you see donkeys in racing condition?)

...wow.

Oops.

Funny how the commentator somehow didn't notice the little problem in the home stretch here.

They Could...

...walk under the rails! Or run under them if they didn't have jockeys!

Poor Commentator

The top two finishers are Mywifeknowseverything and Thewifedoesntknow. The commentator is really struggling here.

Usually...

...a loose horse stays with the herd. Not this time. Good work by the outriders (please be aware this one is mildly NSFW due to language).

Pile Up!

You don't see this kind of thing very often. Thankfully. (The only horse actually injured was the one that fell first).

When...

...most of us lose a stirrup, we should be able to stay in the saddle. Jockeys and exercise riders, however, are supported entirely by their stirrups.

Ow.

Don't worry, the rider was okay according to the person who posted it, but...ow.

Raceday Stunt

Three scantily dressed women come into the parade ring and "steal" a horse.

What does this look like?

It looks like an irresponsible woman stealing a horse and taking it for a joy ride. I was particularly amused by how many commenters remarked on her not wearing a helmet.


































So, having made enough white space, let's look at this video again.

This is a professional stunt. The "horse thief" is a trained rider, likely an exercise rider or possibly even a jockey. She's riding the horse very well and the horse is calm (in fact probably enjoying himself).

And, if you look, she IS WEARING A HELMET. What they did was cut a brim to match the helmet. Then they wrapped a purple feather boa around it. Finally, they wrapped the woman's hair or wig (hard to tell which) around the helmet straps. This is brilliant costuming and I think we can learn from it - this was done by a professional, but there's no reason ideas can't be stolen from it to disguise a helmet (especially if you can afford an English style "jockey club") for equestrian costuming.

(The stunt was done to advertise a reality show about jockey training).

Racing Is Dangerous

...but flat racing accidents have nothing on this:

The race starts out pretty normally with the truck pulling away safe and a decent field of pacers. I had to frame by frame it to see what happened. I honestly can't tell whether the second place horse, Getthemoney, just tripped or whether the two sulkies touched wheels. He picked himself up, having shed his driver. The horse behind collided...and massive pileup.

None of the horses appeared to be injured and I found a news story here that confirms only minor injuries. The drivers were less lucky - several of them were injured.

I once knew a Standardbred who was in an accident on the track. He never raced again despite being only minorly hurt...physically. He refused to be put to a sulky again, and I can't blame him.

The thing with driving is that you don't wreck as often, but when you do...well...it can be truly spectacular. This is why you wear a helmet, people.