My New Most Hated Person

So I have a new most hated person ever, which is nice because I'm sick of all of my old ones.  Victor Espinoza.  I hadn't even heard of him until a few days ago. He is the jockey who rode American Pharoah on to win the Kentucky Derby a couple of weeks ago.  Espinoza is being investigated by some sort of governing body for excessive use of the whip during the race.  He whipped American Pharoah thirty two times during the home stretch.  Thirty two times....in a row.  Not only that, he was sanctioned around the same time when he was riding Stellar Winds in California.  He whipped her so hard it split her skin.  The fine for splitting the skin of a racehorse is $300.  Even I have $300, so that is a ridiculously laughable punishment. 

Do you remember the scene in Super Troopers where the cops are messing with the car full of stoners?  And they tell them to pull over but they're already pulled over and the kid in the back yells "He's already pulled over!  He can't pull over any farther!"  That's what I think about the horses.  After the first couple cracks of the whip, the horse knows he's supposed to run hard.  He gets it.  He's going as fast as he can.  He can't go any faster and whipping him over and over and over isn't going to magically get him to run faster than he's capable of.  He can't pull over any farther.

But, you know what really gets me?  Basically no one cared what the jockey did.  He won the Kentucky Derby and that's all that mattered.  They say you can't argue with results, and he did get results.  The welfare of the horses is clearly secondary to the outcome of the race.  As long as Espinoza gets results, it doesn't matter how he gets them.  I guess.  That sickens me. 

Animals are not here for our amusement, despite what the women in the ridiculous hats say.  I don't watch the races #1 because I don't agree with it and #2 after what happened to Barbaro in '06.  Remember Barbaro?  I've always told my mom that I knew society was doomed the moment we put bears in circuses, riding unicycles and wearing funny little hats.  Bears were not meant to wear funny little hats and ride around on unicycles.  Horses races are neck and neck (see what I did there??) to the bears in funny hats. 

Poor Barbaro