Big Brown

[Kurn]

If race riders aren't athletes, baseball players certainly aren't, thus by your standards baseball isn't a sport either. Clearly golf isn't either.

[PShabi]

Seriously?

A starting pitcher has a Cy Young season, makes 30 starts, wins 20 of them, sometimes throwing 120+ pitches, and goes on to need reconstructive surgery after the season to repair his arm from the grueling season.

A jockey rides a race and needs to change his fucking panties cause they're a little sweaty afterwards.

[Kurn]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you've never ridden a horse.

Race riding is far more aerobic than pitching and requires more pure physical strength than any skill in baseball. I seem to recall in one of the original "Superstars" shows, Angel Cordero, giving away 100 lbs, lifting way more weight than Joe Frazier.

Different sports require different athletic skills and talent, but to even suggest that Bartolo Colon is an athlete and Kent Desormeaux isn't is laughable. I appreciate what it takes to pitch in the majors and I wouldn't disparage Colon or Sabbathia as not being athletes just because they're fatter than me. Both baseball players and race riders are athletes, and baseball players don't risk their lives.

[Spidey44]

Gotta agree with Kurn on this one. A guy weighing a buck 20 controlling an animal that weighs a thousand lbs all the while racing along a track at what, 30 mph with 9 other beasts surrounding you??? Definitely a sport.

[GTDawg]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you've never played professional baseball.

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I will add though:

The physical talent and ability to play golf and/or baseball is always in question because people play it growing up. People know all about baseball and people play golf on the weekends with friends and assume it's all the same.

One horse race vs one single baseball game...maybe the horse race is more physically demanding. But we're talking about 8 months and probably about 200 games for a baseball season.

Controlling the horse and giving signals to the horse all while in a crouch for 3 minutes is very very tough.

[Kurn]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you've never played professional baseball.

Of course, but you're making my point. Most of us recognize the level of skill needed to play at the highest level because we've played at some level or another. Like even trying to mimic turning a DP during fielding practice makes you realize the incredible skill it takes to do it, and the pros make it look easy!

Only a person who had never been on a horse would think that what a race rider does is easy. For a novice, even a mellow little one hour trail ride leaves you sore and stiff the next day. These guys ride 6-7 races per day, ride workouts for a few hours in the morning, all while basically starving themselves and occaisionally putting on a rubber suit and sitting in a sweatbox for a couple of hours to make weight.

It would be one thing if Shabi's comment was "I hate horse racing,. Its stupid and boring and I don't know what all the fuss is." That's an opinion, and it's fine, but saying a discussion of it doesn't belong in the *Sports* section is just wrong.

Not only that, but it's clearly the 2nd best gambling skill game in the world.

[omahilo]

also I want to add that the triple crown is by far the hardest thing to win in ALL OF SPORTS. This is one amazing feat and it is harder than hell... we havent had a triple crown winner in 30 years now.

I would also put the grand slam in tennis and golf up there as well for hardest things to achieve in sports.

[lightfungus]

Big Brown woke up that morning and realized he was being told to run a race that he didn't get anything for, thus he said fuck it and took his sweet time. Plus, if I had to run the 400m dash and I hadn't gotten all the dump-time I needed, I wouldn't make it past the first turn.

Can you really hypothesize why a horse didn't run as fast as usual? Honestly....

My cat usually licks my face and is sweet, but sometimes the lil' fucker bites me. It's an animal...Big Brown's motivation isn't exactly the same as the jockey's or anyone in the stands watching the horses. Yet people put money on this "sport" thinking they can predict an outcome...

But the best athletes in the world play basketball, fwiw. No other sport translates better to all other sports. And these athletes are superior specimens of the human species.