Full Flight

The sport of kings may cost a royal ransom to play, but the plebs can watch it for free. Or, rather, the price of admission. Or the cost of cable. Nitpicking aside, I watched the Kentucky Derby for the first time in years this year. I didn’t pick a horse. Well, I kind of did, just because I wanted an upset, and I think my choice came in fourth—I don’t even remember now. It doesn’t matter, either, because I don’t bet on horse races.

Ter used to visit the track with her dad when she was a kid. He’d give her a couple of bucks and off she’d go to the wicket, but her clearest memory is of collecting the multi-coloured ticket stubs discarded by the losers. I think she was there for the love of horses, too.

My speed-freakishness probably started in another life, maybe when I was Charlie’s girl and he took me to Newmarket for the races in 16-whenever. The origin of my love for horses, however, remains a mystery. And since I’m currently on a bender about the beauty in nature, I have lately been reminded of the saying—though I don’t recall who said it—that the most beautiful sight in creation is that of a horse running at a full gallop.

Personally, I think that a horse grazing beneath an apple tree is just as beautiful, but for sheer robbery of breath, never mind a thundering herd. A single horse in full flight is one of the most beautiful things I can imagine. The sun on a burnished coat, the light in a dark eye, the flowing mane and rippling muscle, yikes, the dream interpreters claim that horses represent sexual power, but really? Can’t they just be beautiful for beauty’s sake?

I will admit that watching the Derby can get my pulse racing, but the best race I ever saw was the Belmont Stakes in 1973, when Secretariat put twenty-five, no, thirty-one record-setting lengths between himself and the second place finisher. That was a race won by a lone horse in full flight.

And it was beautiful.