Kentucky Derby, Think of it This Way

Saturday as I watched the Kentucky Derby at home alone, no fan fair, no parties, just another stormy Saturday afternoon. I settled in to watch all the media coverage and it only made me wonder, what is the real attraction here? Could it truly be a horse racing around an oval track that captures our interest?  Perhaps the real reason is that we have more in common with those horses than we dare to imagine.

Think about it. Thoroughbred horses are breed to race, trained to perform, sent to a breeding facility and then hopefully will retire on some great bluegrass farm in Kentucky. Should they fail to perform, all sorts of gimmicks are employed and when that fails they end up at some rescue facility.

Now rephrase that paragraph to read: People are born to live, trained to be survivors, and then hopefully have made the right choices that end them in the winners’ circle. Should they fail to make the right choices, they too will apply all sorts of gimmicks and when that fails they end up homeless.

The gimmicks a racehorse is forced to succumb to are similar to us. The horse is fitted with blinders so they do not notice the race. We too wear binders when we choose not to see the world as it is around us and run our race alone. When a horse has lost the desire to race it is given performance drugs; we choose alcohol or narcotics. The horse is no better a performer than we are.

The analogy here implies life is but a race we choose the out come of, it implores one to see what one feels as less fortunate as merely a different choice. Though a racehorse is running that race for its trainer a human is running that race for their personal rewards. What I feel are rewards you may see as a slight, not worth earning. This is the choice.

We have to choose to take those blinders off and to see those around you as merely making different selections. To be compassionate enough to reach out and say, ”It’s okay we can find another choice here.” We need to become part of the cure and not part of the problem. To run our race as gallantly as those thoroughbreds we have chosen to place our money on.

P.S. Sorry for the delay in posts but one must have power to post. Besides I had to back stroke to the living room.

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