the rabbits of the night

ask anyone who was there (and by anyone i mean my girlfriend, who fortunately was the only one there) and they'll tell you that i was reduced to a whimpering puddle of estrogen last year when smarty jones lost the belmont, failing to win the triple crown. i'll admit to being a band-wagon jumper...i had never looked twice at a horse race, but i got completely caught up in the hype, and was crushed when he lost. it was the suddeness of the heartbreak...2 minutes. i'm a baseball fan... that, i can take. 162 games. no time limits. and although i was squirming with the rest of red sox nation during the ALCS, it was 7 games. you had the time to process the idea that the red sox were going to let you down...again (i recently saw HBO's "reverse the curse of the bambino", and i couldn't agree more with denis leary when he talked about feeling slightly pissed at the sox for winning game 4, and delaying the inevitable) but these horse races...man, it's just so much bulid up, and it's all over in 2 minutes. 1 fucking lap, and the horse never races in the kentucky derby, or belmont, or preakness again. and i'm not sure i would have even bothered to tune in to today's kentucky derby were it not for the whole steinbrenner fracas. but i had to root against the guy. not for the thrill of rooting for the underdog, but because i'm a sox fan, and i was hoping that with the type of season the yankees are having, that if his horse lost, old george's head might actually explode on national tv....and who wouldn't want to see that. and i got completely sucked in. again, my only personal stake in the race was to see one particular horse not win, but i found myself blindly picking a favorite (who incidentally finished third), and just falling in love with the whole scene. i'm happy that steinbrenner's horse lost....but mostly, i'm just looking forward to the next race. i fully expect to have a gambling problem by then.