Derby Day Update on the Ethics of Horse Racing

Today is the first Saturday in May, when I watch my first horse race of the year, the Kentucky Derby. This is the first race in the competition for the Triple Crown - a trophy which has not been awarded since 1978! While not an expert on horse racing (I have watched three horse races a year for the past 12 years or so), I do own a horse (see right) and have spent plenty of time discussing the ins-and-outs of horse industry ethics. So, while you are mixing your mint juleps and picking out the perfect hat, here are some of the top issues facing racehorses and their riders.

1. Racing young horses can be physically destructive. The Kentucky Derby races three year-old Thoroughbreds, a breed which is not physically mature until age four or five. Moreover, age is determined based on January 1st of the year of foaling, so the horses racing today are actually between the ages of two and three, and have already been fully trained and run many races to qualify. This means that they are actively racing well before three years of age on bones that are not fully developed. Is it any wonder then that these young horses (babies!) receive fatal injuries on the track, as favorites Eight Belles and Barbaro did in recent years? This does not even go into the long-term health and soundness implications of putting a horse through such intense work at a young age. To give some perspective on how young these animals really are, the average, healthy Thoroughbred lives to its mid-thirties.

NCAA Men’s Final Four: Indianapolis Bound

What a show the boys have put on for us! The men's Final Four is imminent and will feature the #5 Butler Bulldogs vs. #5 Michigan St. Spartans and #2 West Virginia Mountaineers vs. the last surviving #1 seed, my beloved Duke Blue Devils. How we got to this Final Four, I haven't a clue.

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: bad science, working women, and football

Some crazy study has come out that shows that to maintain weight, women need to exercise an hour a day.  Oh wait, no it doesn't!  The study followed 34,000 women, who had a mean age of 54 at the start, over 13 years, and recorded exercise, start weight, and end weight.  1) There it is again: correlation is not causation.  Exercising a lot was correlated with not gaining weight (for women who had a "normal" BMI to begin with), but that could be because people who exercise a lot eat differently, have different genetics, or had different health habits early in life.  2) Did I mention these women started at 54?  Gaining weight in the 13 years between 54 and 67 is completely normal (whereas exercising an hour a day really isn't, especially for people in their 60s who may have health problems, see image).  Your body needs fat to synthesize estrogen, which is protective against osteoporosis and other diseases of aging.  After menopause, estrogen produced by the reproductive system naturally decreases (why hormone replacement therapy used to be the norm), so fat cells may be an important source of ongoing estrogen support.  We have no idea whether weight gain after menopause is good or bad for you.  We have no science that says this.  These studies...oh man.  As Gawker says, science is working overtime to make women feel bad about themselves, but not much else.

March Madness: A Farewell to Busted Brackets

Last week, my bracket blew up--completely self-destructed. It no longer exists. BUT, my excitement about this year's NCAA men's basketball March Madness has reached MANIA! This tournament has been seriously schizophrenic, with the most unpredictable opening rounds of the NCAA men's basketball tournament I've seen in a long time and I'll tell you why....

Tiger Pays (another insincere apology) to Play.

Can this be over already? I'll admit that I have, like many others, become overly interested in the Tiger Woods scandal. While I can appreciate that the man is a skilled golfer, I tend to root for the underdog. So, I usually end up rooting against Tiger on the course. Despite my indifference towards the man as a golfer, I can't shake my curiosity about Tiger the man, the son, the husband, the father—mainly because it has been thrown in my face by the media everyday for the past several months. In my opinion, Tiger Woods is the ultimate "Two Face". Seriously, once again on Sunday night, Tiger Woods stood before a camera and recited, basically the exact same speech he gave us last month when he took just enough time out of sex addiction rehab to stand before the media and chastise it for being in his and his family's business. Now, that he's decided to play in the Masters in April, I guess he just wanted to remind us in that robotic, stoic, and unconvincing way that he performs so well that he is sorry he let us down.

March Madness: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Question: What do the NCAA tournament and flip-flops have in common?

Answer: NO HEELS!

Okay, that was a cheap shot, but I bleed Duke blue, so naturally, the NCAA Men’s tournament is one of my holy seasons. There’s a lot of commotion over this year’s picks for the Big Dance. Folks whining over Virginia Tech not getting invited; haters saying that Duke is in the easiest bracket (well, they say that every year, though we really may have gotten the best draw this year); people crying that Kansas, the number one seed overall, is in the toughest bracket—alright, so now they can prove that they deserve it. I don’t get all of the brouhaha out there, but I do have a few personal considerations as I’m filling out my bracket and calling busters that will ensure I take the whole pot home this year—no more splitsies!! Here’s my list, what’s on yours?

Whacky 2010 Olympic Winter Games? Blame Canada!

I have never really been too enthusiastic about the Olympic winter games. I like the ice skating, but never really understood why someone would want to race down a snowy mountain at the speed of light or hurl themselves off a ramp to tumble through the air at dangerous heights. It has always seemed more like daredevil stuff more than sport to me, but these 2010 games have had my attention like no other. The only explanation I can come up with for the controversy, drama and excitement is Canada, so I blame them. Here are some of my personal favorite highlights, some whacky, some awesome.

Tiger Woods Is Sorry Y’all. Elin Woods Says Prove It. I’m Incredulous.

Tiger Woods read an 11 minute heartfelt and at times angry and chastising apology to the world this morning. I’m a little over this whole mess. I can’t imagine what this man was thinking as he was cheating with more than a dozen women. Don’t we all know by now that TMZ, The National Enquirer, or real news is relentless until they expose you for the lying, cheating jackass you are?!!! In my opinion, the statement was worthless. He admitted to feeling a sense of entitlement because of his success and riches. He claims that his straying away from the Buddhist teachings his mother instilled in him since he was a child led to his engorged sense of ego, selfishness, and eventual fall. He apologized to the fans and the kids that considered him a role model. All of which would have seemed more sincere if he hadn’t had to pause and look down at his script so often, but I guess with such a long list to make amends for, it really couldn’t and shouldn’t have been an off the cuff statement.

Superbowl wrap up--Go Saints!

Now that was a Superbowl.  Four lead changes, an underdog comeback (from the biggest deficit ever to be surmounted in Superbowl history), an onside kick, two-point conversion and controversial call, and finally an interception against the thought-to-be infallible arm of Peyton Manning.  NOLA.com has the goods on all the Superbowl records broken last night.  What a game!  ESPN has an interesting piece about the calculated risks the Saints' coach Sean Payton took last night.  To me, this is the right story to be going after this morning.  As touching as Drew Brees's injury recovery and adoption of New Orleans (and vice versa) is, from where I was sitting, it looked like coaching, and not any star players, won this game.  Payton made the right call, every time, even when he went for it on the fourth down (instead of taking an easy three points) and they couldn't deliver.  They still had a good enough chance that it made sense to try.  Brees was dead accurate short, but seemed to me to make some strange calls, and the defense was hot and cold--amazing one minute, letting the Colts walk down the field the next.  This was Payton's win.

But enough about that.  Gawker's got the rundown on everything not football related, EW's Michael Slezak breaks down the best and worst commercials, and elsewhere on EW they have the inside scoop on how that crazy David Letterman/Oprah/Jay Leno ad came to be.  Ken Tucker also looks at the Pam/Tim Tebow ads, which turned out to be not so much controversial as they were misleading (more on this to come).  Elsewhere, Jezebel offers their take on the night's decidedly unprogressive, male ego stroking ads.

My favorites were the google love story and the green police.  You?

If you take a personality-based approach to sports, this is your guide to the superbowl

This Recording has an awesome piece where they break down the different personalities on either side of the Superbowl. They talk about Scott Fujita, who we already told you about, but also Reggie Bush, Haitian players Jonathan Vilma (Saints) and Pierre Garcon (Colts), Austin Collie, Gary Brackett, and Peyton Manning.

Among their insights:

• Austin Collie took two years off before his (undoubtedly high paid) pro football career for a Morman mission in Argentina.  There's a man who loves God.
• Jonathan Vilma started a financial planning program for school kids, which he plans to extend to the NFL, because apparently 78% of players are broke within 2 years of retirement.
• Reggie Bush will be looking for some serious redemption, after winning the Heisman trophy, getting drafted 2nd overall, and then going on to...do absolutely nothing in the NFL.  Except date Kim Kardashian.
• Gary Bracket walked on to his college team, came to the Colts as a free agent, and still managed to become captain of the team's defense over two other drafted, much higher paid linebackers.  And he lost both his parents and older brother in one tragedy-filled 13 month period.  Just try not to tear up when you read his story.  Says This Recording, "During the Super Bowl, when Gary tackles Reggie Bush, bear in mind that Reggie is being tackled by a man who, unlike Reggie, had nothing handed to him, who’s fought through all kinds of personal tragedy, and has made a fraction of the money."

Go read the whole thing, and then come back and tell me--who are you rooting for now?  (Assuming you had no ingoing loyalties, if the Bears were in the Superbowl, I wouldn't care what kind of personal tragedy and heroism was on the other side, at least not in a football sense)

[Hat tip ding]

One good reason to root for the Saints

Ms Pearlz N the Hood gave us plenty of reasons why we shouldn't feel obligated to root for the Saints.  But I'll give you one reason to do it anyway: Their adorable, outspoken linebacker Scott Fujita.  Among the acts to his credit [via Jezebel]:

• Fujita, who is adopted, gently, but clearly, opposed the message of the Pam and Tim Tebow superbowl ad, saying of his biological mother, "I'm just so thankful she had the courage and the support system to be able to carry out the pregnancy.  I wouldn't expect that of everybody."
• He is a vocal supporter of gay rights, and likes getting in debates with his teammates about it
• He was adopted by a Japanese father and Caucasian mother, and considers himself culturally Japanese, eating with chopsticks and celebrating traditional festivals.  (Okay, that's not really so much "to his credit," but for some reason I find it adorable).  He also says he draws inspiration from the experience of his Japanese-American family's internment during World War II.

A cutie with a conscience?  Gooooo Saints!

Super Bowl Super Guilt

Super Bowl XLIV is imminent. And the stress has already made my blood pressure soar. What stress? The stress of openly admitting pulling for Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts this Sunday and being chastised for it. Does rooting against the New Orleans Saints make me a bad person? Well, several people have emphatically told me, “YES”. Why? Because New Orleans needs a victory. The people of the hurricane ravaged city need a lift. Sure, but specifically in the form of a Saints Super Bowl victory? And in the interest of full disclosure, I’m greatly disappointed that I’m not getting my Minnesota Vikings vs. Colts Super Bowl. I know there are folks out there who feel the same way, but no one has had my back like the fictional 30 Rock character, Nancy Donovan, over this “BS Saints bandwagon”. Go Colts!