Sunday, November 02, 2008

The Alpha Mare B.C.: A Big Thank You Kiss to Lil’ Dickie Dutrow

Just when we thought it was safe...racing's Gangsta reminds us that we're not all equal.

As we wind down following the Breeders’ Cup, it all shakes down and the Really Important Stuff is what stays on top. There’s so much I could say about the artificial surface at Santa Anita—and the fact that hosting a Breeders’ Cup there is an exercise in stupidity, and unfairness. (Let’s face it: when The Greatest Horse on Earth comes in fourth—it ain’t the horse’s fault. The playing field at any racetrack boasting polycrap of any kind is not level, no matter what they tell you. Marketing, marketing, marketing—and somebody’s brother makin’ a boatload of cash—are the elements that go into fake dirt, along with the rubber tires and carcinogens.)

I could rant about that for a few paragraphs, but my ferret-like mind has found something even more fabulous about which to opine post-Breeders’ Cup. (The horse racing season is measured B.C., isn’t it?)

BC Day for me was disappointing, painful, surprising, joyful in spots—but mostly, an occasion to give thanks. As the American holiday of Thanksgiving rolls ‘round, and we look within, we find ourselves in a quiet place of gratitude.

Cue the Yanni music:

This year, I find myself most grateful to…trainer, Richard Dutrow.

Thank you, Notorious D, for reminding every woman, girl, filly and mare in Thoroughbred racing that you are a card-carrying member of The Old Boys’ Club, that bastion of misogyny and most of the other –isms that hold back the wheels of progress.

Thank you for reminding us that that unsavory concept is alive and well in our beautiful sport. Dick, we’d fallen asleep at the wheel—we’d almost forgotten that Thoroughbred racing is a sport dominated by White Males, many of whom are equipped with bad history and their feelings of entitlement. Yes, there are many great men out there—brilliant horsemen, and egalitarian thinkers—like Todd Pletcher, Leroy Jolley and John Pricci—who know that the presence of “female parts� south of the border does not create an environment hostile to the training and understanding of a horse.

(In fact, I can quote Leroy, ver batim: I first met the Hall of Famer in 2006 at the Oklahoma in Saratoga. As we discussed the fact that racing’s administrators have no idea how to correctly market the sport, Leroy pronounced, “They don’t know how to market this sport! Do you know who they’re supposed to market it to? Let me ask you—who loves a horse more than a 13-year-old girl??�)

Right on, O Wise One. Women, not men, are born with built-in horse genes. I could be a big Female Chauvinist Sow, and write an entire treatise on the fact that every girl wants a horse from the time she can speak. This is not so with little boys. I could say that women, not men, are predisposed to know and intuitively understand horses. This, for males, it’s a learned affection. I could go on and on about the naturalness of the human female/equine relationship—a naturalness which is absent in all but the most rare males.

I could say all that stuff, but I won’t.

‘Cause then I’d be guilty of androgyny: hatred of men.

And I don’t hate men, I don’t even think that they’re inferior to women. I like men. I love several men.

I won’t write all that chauvinistic stuff because then I’d be the female version of Richard Dutrow. Sexism is ugly. Reverse sexism—while understandable—is still unattractive.

I am so, so grateful to Richard Dutrow—and all you women who are similarly grateful, please write him a letter—for reminding us that we have a long struggle ahead of us. (The very fact that the Breeders’ Cup TV coverage included a piece on the women trainers in the BC—indicates that we’re still thought of as an anomaly. There should be no need to take special notice, to do a video piece, on women who are Thoroughbred trainers.)

Truly, Notorious R.D., I am eternally grateful. Like so many other women in this sport, I was toodling along, thinking that the coast was clear. That all men think like Pletcher and Pricci.

That the fact that I’m packin’ ovaries has no bearing on my status in the sport.

You, my dear, underappreciated Richard Dutrow, brought it all back to me: the niggling little stones in my shoe as I inch along my personal shedrow, carving out my career in Thoroughbred racing.

Ah, yes… the three turf writers (all men) who sadly informed me that I probably won’t make it in this sport because I write like a girl. My racing partner who—after an entire spring and summer mucking a stall together, and knowing that I’ve been involved with horses since 1962—“quizzed� me, saying, “Quick! What’s a furlong?�

Dick—and I say that with a ton of love in my heart—Dick, your inane pronouncement that you’d never acknowledge a woman trainer—God bless ya, you drove it all home for us. A steel spike, quietly sheathed in a blue velvet bag. Straight through the forehead, nailing all women in this sport squarely in the brain. (Yes, Dick, we DO have brains—and they’re not tucked into our uteri!) You brought it home, you didn’t bluster and get all-loud on us. You pronounced, on international television, that that which women in racing do, or know—specifically, women trainers—has “no interest� for you at all. In a style quite unlike all your egotistical ravings about the beautiful and mishandled Big Brown—you quietly, like a mouse carrying arsenic into a cat’s lair—stated that women in racing are invalid.

God bless ya, Richard. We are so grateful for your kind reminder that the coast is NOT clear. That the future of females in racing is NOT secure. We were lulled into a false sense of security—and then you crooked your finger, whispered into our collective ear—and the Truth came roaring into our faces.

Thank you for the wake-up call, Snoop Ricky-Rick. You are a Gangsta of Thoroughbred Racing, the voice of the 19th Century, desperately clinging to your little world. You sounded the alarm for all we women in racing—and the men who dig it that we’re here. We are now more determined than ever—as are our male supporters, friends and colleagues.

And for this favor, Richard Dutrow, it is my distinct honor to present you with the 2008 Golden Uterus Award. (Weeping, joyful gratitude, from all of us, really)—a Big Thank You Kiss, plus your Golden Uterus trophy—from me and The Girls. (Digs her toe into the dirt, casts her eyes downward, smiles shyly.)

Fade to Black.






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