I just got back from a lovely afternoon a Canterbury Park with friends.  It was a perfect day.  I just love horses even though they scare me.  Does that make sense?  I could watch them all day.

It's been a really long time since I've been to a horse race and I've never been good at picking winners.  I would usually pick a horse because it was a pretty color or had a clever name.  I would never look at the stats or the jockeys.

But today, I decided to pay attention to more things than beauty or flashy names.  We watched the horses walk around the circle and made note of their behavior.  We listened to the announcer's description of the horses and his assessment of how they would do in the race.  One thing we noticed was that the more spooked, temperamental and difficult to handle the horse, the more likely it was to win.  I thought that was interesting.  Although the horse appeared "naughty", it was just excited to get out there and win.  My big winner of the day was named "Heza Wild Guy".  He was behaving pretty well but the announcer like him, and that was good enough for me.

Watching all of those magnificent horses today reminded me of the 21 polo horses that died recently due to an over dose of the mineral selenium.  How heartbreaking that must have been for the polo players and the owners.  It was a painful lesson learned.  Rest in peace, beautiful ones.  You will be missed.