The beginning of May is a magical time of year. The weather has stayed mild for long enough by now that all but the most pessimistic can safely say winter is over. Grass is green, flowers are in bloom, and crops are in the ground. Schoolchildren and teachers alike struggle to keep their minds in the classroom, tempted as they are by the allure of sunshine and an imminent summer vacation.
The event that marks the unofficial beginning of summer, at least for me, is the running of the Kentucky Derby, the 2015 rendition of which takes place May 2.
Like most Americans, I know next to nothing about thoroughbred horseracing. And, like most Americans, I make an annual ritual of pretending to know everything about the sport in the days and weeks immediately following the Run for the Roses: Is this the year we get a Triple Crown winner? Was the Derby win a fluke? Which horse is the best bet to knock off the Derby winner? I become a veritable wellspring of answers to these and many other questions regarding the noble sport of horseracing for two to five weeks late each spring.
American thoroughbred racing has not seen a horse win all three legs of the Triple Crown—the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes—since Affirmed accomplished the feat in 1978. Thirteen horses since then have won the first two races, only to be felled by the mile-and-a-half Belmont. It’s disappointing, to say the least, every time a colt steps up in a couple big moments, only to be denied immortality because he fell short in the third. Perhaps the most heartbreaking of these near-misses was Charismatic’s in 1999, when the Derby and Preakness winner finished third after breaking his leg in the final furlong.
Even though I generally only pay attention to three horse races a year, one horse who was never entered in a Triple Crown race is my favorite racehorse ever. Her name is Zenyatta, and while she should have been a household name years earlier, she became a sensation with her performance in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Classic. As a six-year-old, nearly twice the age of most of her opponents, Zenyatta came into the Classic, set to be her final race, with a pristine 19-0 record.
I imagine racetrack announcers, like other media members, are supposed to maintain some semblance of objectivity. But as the 2010 Classic unfolded before him, Churchill Downs mic man Mark Johnson dropped all pretenses and unabashedly became a fan of the sport and of the story playing out before him. Zenyatta started the race poorly, falling behind by as much as 20 lengths of the lead on the backstretch. But coming around the final turn, the pack bunched up and Zenyatta, always a late closer, surged toward the front.
I turn now to Johnson’s words: “Zenyatta now hooking to the grandstand side…Zenyatta is now coming with her run…Blame no the inside gets the lead…Zenyatta on the outside…Blame…Zenyatta! Zenyatta! Zenyatta is flying! Blame trying to hold on! Blame and Zenyattaaaaaaa……..”
Zenyatta, the mare everyone loved, lost her final race by less than a head to Blame. Admittedly, I didn’t watch the race—or even know it had taken place—until the replay blew up social media the next day. (Like I said, I’m the worst kind of fan, a bandwagon jumper, when it comes to horseracing.) And while the loss denied her a perfect career record (as if a horse would care), I think Zenyatta gained more notoriety among the masses for her valiant defeat than any win could have garnered. Even with a prior knowledge of the outcome, it’s tough not to watch the race on YouTube and believe that she’ll pull it off this time.
Competitive people like to say winning is everything, but that’s a load of malarkey. People lose all the time, and you know what? They pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and move on. Nowhere is that more true than in production agriculture, where miscalculated tank mix or an out-of-nowhere outbreak of ring rot can cost a grower millions. It’s not uncommon for those things to happen. What is uncommon is a grower allowing those things to keep him or her down.
Nope, winning isn’t everything. But losing certainly isn’t, either.