"All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it."
-H. L. Mencken
I am a Cubs fan.
That means I am inured to the tragic comedy that is our playoff chronicle. I survived the collapse in '84 and that F@$#ing Steve Garvey; I taste bile even as I write this. Bartman, while not in mortal danger, would definitely get his ass, cross checked into a slow moving bus.
The list of frustrations is exhaustive and lugubrious but this is not the forum for it. My point being, I wear disillusion like an old pair of blue jeans. Like a Calvinist reprobate, I greet every announced retirement with stoicism, but dear reader(s), this must be crushing to the rest of you.
Zarkava, Big Brown and Darjina are just the latest in a litany of announcements. And who can forget The Green Monkey?
The most insulting and disingenuous dogma, surprisingly, emanates from the Aga Khan.
"My family has been breeding racehorses for five generations," the Aga said. "Two generations in India and three in Europe, and I believe this moment is the apogee of that effort.
Apogee(noun): The farthest or highest point. Culmination.
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
If, which I do not argue, Zarkava is the culmination of a breeding enterprise, one cannot, by definition, improve upon that. Why not continue to race her?
I don't think the Aga Khan is a commercial breeder. He might sell some of his stock in the sales but I believe that he races most of his own. He doesn't do it for the money and he is breeding Zarkava to one of his own, 2003 Arc winner Dalakhani. So what is the driving force behind spiriting her off to the paddocks?
There is a disconnect in this game when we manage to breed a horse that can actually run and immediately whisk them off to stud. Undeniably, Zarkava is unique; she is what everyone in this game is after. We all deserve to see her run.
Somebody needs to restore to us some of that faith; the substance of things hoped for, in the evidence of things unseen.
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2 comments:
While everyone banters about Big Brown and his march to the stud shed, I am so glad you took the initiative to take aim at Aga Kahn.
You read my thoughts and wrote about them in a more literate way than I ever could.
IEAH is very unlikeable but lets cast a light on the other owners that are doing the same thing. IEAH is not a rarity; they are just part of the crowd.
Exactly. The Aga Khan is not a commercial breeder. And Zarkava is by one of the his stallions. He is going to breed her to another one of his stallions to try to get one just like her. Why doesn't he just run the sure thing for another year? I don't understand. But then again, I'm not a spiritual leader to anyone. I may be missing the bigger hereditary title picture.
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