Watching Big Brown

I just watched Big Brown, the horse favored to win the Belmont Stakes, the third race of the Triple Crown finish dead last.  And I feel a little sad. 

A horse race brings together an amazing number of factors and possibilities and the emotional engagement you feel with the horse is surprising.  Today, if you had bet against the odds, $2 would have made you $3700.  

But now a huge amount of effort is being geared towards, "what happened?!"  From my naive point of view it seems that the jockey, Kent Desormeauex, over thought it.  The horse wanted to go, you could see him chomping at the bit, but the rider seemed to have a strategy. He seemed to slow down and go wide, pacing the horse for the finish.  But he never got the chance and Da' Tara, who Big Brown had beaten by 23 lengths in a previous race, pulled ahead and won.

The process of understanding what went wrong is a tricky game.  Because even if you are willing to really see, place no blame, not be "in the right" and learn from the experience, the momentum is backwards.  However, I imagine that for a horse whose breeding rights just sold for $50 million dollars last week, people need answers.  At the start of the race, the horse's owner was drenched in nervous sweat.  Maybe he had bet that $50 million.

We can know the facts of a situation.  We can watch the reply of the race over and over and make a list: 1) His left leg seemed to slip; 2) The weather was cool yesterday and hot today; 3)His cycle of steroid treatments changed; 4) He seemed to be out of sync with the rider at the start of the race, etc.  Then we can hear what everyone thinks, from the rider to the trainer, maybe the owner and all the commentators. The horse also shows his emotions about the situation.  From there we can try to piece together the information into a reasonable conclusion.  But then what?  Tomorrow's race will bring together another million factors that will play out in another magical unknown way.

This is the part we love and hate.  Our minds want to know what has happened and what is going to happen.  This keeps us attached.  Or as Alan Watts says, "Planning ensures that the future looks a lot like the past."  It is a special moment when the mind is relaxed with what is actually happening.  This is a moment of spacious and wonderful grace.  A deeper part of us is touched here.  And the same race that created weeks of predictions and now weeks of analysis, gives us that brief 2 minute thrill of getting to Watch.  It provides us with the opportunity to really Look and participate with our whole being in the Unknown.

As a wife of a sports fan, this has been a critical discovery.  To transform the event from noise to delight, I have learned to pay attention, notice when the match up is good and enjoy the games.