American Pharoah, winner of the Triple Crown,…
…wears earplugs when he races.
Why? Because he’s sensitive to noise. And so he was wearing his earplugs when he made history on June 6 by being the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.
I don’t follow horse racing much, but when something this dramatic happens it grabs my attention. This certainly got my attention. Watching American Pharoah race down the stretch, I don’t think I was anthropomorphizing when I imagined that he wanted to win, he felt confident he was going to win. From what I understand of horses, they don’t comprehend the whole prize money thing or the stud fee thing, but they know when they’re ahead and they like it very much. You could really see him opening up the throttle and moving, his head pumping a bit with the effort of it all, but without any sense of strain.
Speaking of the enormous stud fees this horse will collect, I was wondering whether American Pharoah will be earning them in person, as it were, or whether artificial insemination is used. It turns out there’s a rule that thoroughbred horses must “cover” (that’s a horse-world word for having sex) in the usual manner (known as “live cover”); they can’t just phone it in. And there are some good reasons for that, mostly financial.
There are many articles on the subject of why, but this one explains it pretty well. Artificial insemination in the thoroughbred world would have two main results: it would reduce the fees for the service, since many many more mares could be impregnated with a winner’s sperm, and it could therefore narrow the gene pool in a way that would be dangerous.
The economics go like this:
A live cover is subject to market economics because it is a limited commodity whose price depends, at least in part, on demand. Conversely, AI makes the product nearly limitless, logically reducing its value. Similarly, resulting foals would be devalued because of abundance – a situation that Thoroughbred sales companies wish to avoid. Further, allowing AI would alter the infrastructure of Thoroughbred breeding by reducing the need for transport services, off-site boarding of mares, small stallion farms, and myriad other segments of the Thoroughbred breeding industry.
However, horses are large and sometimes unruly creatures, and mating them “live” is no easy or safe matter and generally involves multiple handlers controlling the situation. Many safeguards have to be built in (you can read about it here, if you’re interested).
This is the life that looms ahead for American Pharoah. Not a bad gig, I suppose.
[NOTE: One of the reasons this topic interests me is that I have a good friend who had a mare that was bred, and as a consequence of what was euphemistically called a breeding mishap had to be put down. I’ll spare you the details, but it was absolutely awful, and impressed on me the necessity of great care as well as the possibility of great danger in the horse breeding process.]
Does Clinton get stud fees sent to the foundation?
Ever read the “live cover” scene in Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full?
Rough stuff indeed.
[And I think that Amazon link is via Neo’s portal]
your not anthropomorphizing…
they DO want to win..
the fastest horse gets the womens…
🙂
I was wondering whether American Pharoah will be earning them in person, as it were, or whether artificial insemination is used.
sorry… but artificial insemination is used. the horses are too valuable to risk beign harmed
there are several ways this is done..
the cheapest is that some one comes over, jerks them, puts a condom over, and finishes the job
the other way is that they have a kind of fake horse, and that horse has a place for the horse to put his thang.
they bring him in, then they bring a female in behind a wall so he can smell her, he then mounts the device, they guide him into the opening, he does his less than a minute things, and thats that.
the sperm is then divided up into minimum amounts and is usually frozen… its the frozen sperm that most buy and then use to impregnate the female in estrus.
there are videos on line you can see on youtube.
if you care..
Artificial insemination in the thoroughbred world would have two main results
sorry. it has at least THREE..
and one of them is the most important you left out.
you can still buy their sperm long after the horse is dead… so you can have a modern femal winner and for enough money (over 50,000 a pop) you can sire a foal with sperm from a horse dead 50 years…
🙂
did i mention some of my family lives in kentucky near the races? and me like an idiot has yet to go to the events… (even more stupid, i could have gotten access to the big events when i was still taking pictures)
another interesting things about thoroubreds is that they are not too bright and they cant hack corners… if you look at the fences in the stables where they are put, they will have extra sections added to curve the corners… the horses get stuck if you have corners. they get to fence, follow it till they are inthe corner, see fence on both sides and then cant leave… so they put curves in the corners so that they dont get stuck standing there..
AI is a no no in the horse breeding world because
somebody could possibly *tamper* with the specimen.
As well in plenty of human cultures ethnicity is
derived from the female parent because she births the child, where as the baby daddy can be open to
speculation.
It’s entirely a dominance thing.
My next door neighbor retired from horse training. One of his owners had two horses that were extremely dominant, and could beat anyone. Horse #1 was the faster of the two, but horse #2 would win every single race between the two, solely from being dominant. You could see #1 back down from the lead every single time the two trained against each other.
You absolutely have horses like Secretariat that ooze alpha.
Most of the great race horses “wanted” to win. Often a Jockey’s job is to hold the horse back until the right moment and then let it go–not to goad it on to win. So, you are in general not projecting qualities onto the horse: they definitely know what is up, and I might add that at this level these horses are very intelligent so far as horses go.
The wonderful thing about AP, I think, is that in addition to being a great champion he is an extremely beautiful horse. In this he reminds one a bit of Secretariat.
…imagined that he wanted to win, he felt confident he was going to win.
Put’s me in mind of another great horse, the incomparable Secretariat. He exuded confidence. The utter aplomb with which he paraded himself from paddock to starter gate for the third leg of the Triple Crown was as much a spectacle as the race — which he’d won by some 30 lengths.
Reading the pre-race accounts, and listening to the race call, are, both of them, thrills. In an account of him in the paddock gathered together with the other entries, one writer described him as nearly insouciant as to the point of over overconfidence. As a plane, one of those dragging a banner, flew overhead, Secretariat looked and up and watched it. He would have been more nervous in a stud barn. I recall also the race call. When Secretariat took an early lead the color announcer was almost apoplectic that the jockey would allow him the pace. Secretariat’s usual race was to start slow and build up steam like a locomotive — he was built like one. In this race he not only took an early lead but extended with every quarter pole. Perhaps the most magnificent athletic feat I’d ever seen and surely in keeping that, in his case, no anthropomorphizing was necessary – he wanted to win, he felt confident he was going to win. Ooze alpha indeed.
Neo, you write the most fascinating articles. Thank you.
I freely admit that seeing American Pharaoh pull away from the pack during the last half brought tears to my eyes. He was awesome!
I’ve seen “live cover” at a horse farm and it was a real education for a young, naive man. The girl who washed down the stud’s large, dangling schlong with a wet rag, for example…
If you buy it frozen, you have only someone’s word that it came from that specific horse. Possibilities for profit on fraud seem lhigh.
Even the not-so-great race horses want to win. I grew up with horses, and a friend of mine had a thoroughbred who had spent his first few years on the track. He’d had a dismal career and was sold cheaply to my friend as a failure — but he never forgot that he was a race horse. For the rest of his life, he’d never, ever let another horse get in front of him. When we rode in a group, he had to lead; if he was in front, he’d amble along sleepily, but if his rider held him back he’d tug and prance and snort until he was allowed to pass the rest of us again. If it was just my friend and me, he’d allow us to ride beside each other and talk, so long as I made sure to keep my horse a head behind hers. I don’t know if it was born into him with his thoroughbred genes or learned in those few early years, but the drive to lead was as much a part of him as his mane and tail.
George Pal:
Not only did Secretariat win the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, that record for the mile and a half (at Belmont) has never been broken.
There is an amazing picture, taken from the rail, of Secretariat coming down the stretch. You need binoculars to see the horse in second place.
The last Triple Crown winner before American Pharoah was Affirmed, in 1978. If Affirmed had never been born, Alydar would have won the Triple that year, because he came in second in all three races, losing by a length, a neck, and a head. Some say that it was the competition from Alyadar that made Affirmed the winner.
Yet Secretariat won by 31 lengths and set the track record — with no compeition! He just liked to run fast.
Mrs Whatsit Said:
“Even the not-so-great race horses want to win.”
Concur. I have some experience with horses. Not much. And generally stallions, especially, are just naturally competitive. American Pharoah is a stallion. I’m afraid in our biologically challenged times I need to point out that’s why there’s any discussion of putting him out to stud.
That’s why the key to keeping horses together in a group, and you have more than one stallion, is to have enough room for one to get away if/when they get into a fight and one wants to give up.
It’s also why you don’t want squared off fence lines, where a horse can get boxed in into a corner, but not into a curved fenceline. And if you’re wondering why you’d want to keep horses together in a group, they’re herd animals and they need to learn how to be horses. I will go out onto a limb and say you’ll have more behavior problems with a stallion than with a gelding or a mare if you don’t let him learn how to be a horse.
As Kentucky Packrat notes it’s a dominance thing.
“One of his owners had two horses that were extremely dominant, and could beat anyone. Horse #1 was the faster of the two, but horse #2 would win every single race between the two, solely from being dominant. You could see #1 back down from the lead every single time the two trained against each other.”
They had already worked out the pecking order. When these horses that are complete strangers get together to race they have yet to work it out.
They don’t compete for reasons that make sense to us. They compete for reasons that make sense to them.
For all his alpha dominance on the track, I understand Secretariat was a dud as a stud.
roc scssrs:
He’d rather be running.
roc scssrs, maybe he never learned how to be a horse. A lot of stallions have been held in solitary confinement on the theory they’re just bullies waiting to happen.
It isn’t true. Older geldings and pregnant mares, especially, will teach a colt manners.