Originally published at: Dronecam footage of Rich Strike winning the Kentucky Derby | Boing Boing
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Quote from Mrs Akbar after watching this last night: “That right there is a horse that wanted to win. Nothing to do with the rider or anything else, that was 100% all equine.”
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I can’t help but think that just a few years ago, that shot would have come from the Goodyear blimp.
Yes, I’m an old fart!
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I should call my bookie and put some money down on that horse for the Preakness but can lightning strike twice?
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The jockey, Sonny Leon, rode a brilliant race, making the right moves with skill and timing.
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The jockey wasn’t switching Rich Strike either; just letting him go. It was hard to see the trajectory in the original race footage, but the drone footage (and the arrows) are fabulous.
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Doubtful, because the odds will be much different. But the horse might win. 
Currently it’s 5:1. Probably will change as the race gets closer.
I’ve been researching the best legal way to bet on the Preakness but my gosh is it hard to find information.
Anyone know a legitimate way to bet online? MIchigan appears to allow off track betting but finding a legitimate online place is challenging. Our local race track uses a site called TVG and looks like the best option but if anyone knows how to do this I’m all ears.
I don’t expect to win but watching horse racing is a lot more fun if you have a horse to cheer because everyone knows the louder you cheer the faster your horse goes.
I miss live harness racing, was always a cheap night out and lots of fun. Rarely won, occasionally broke even, but never lost more than dinner and a show.
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Fields that big often make a mockery of conventional filming techniques. Too many horses is the Derby’s MO. After working at it, I count 18 horses (mostly) visible in that thumbnail alone.
The aerial footage is wonderful. I missed it when it was on tv, and could only find vid of the end of the race until folks started writing about this great footage and included the vids from twitter.
I read somewhere this footage came from “an aircraft;” does that mean a plane and not a drone?
From an NBC press release before the race.
A live drone and two live jockey cam systems will be utilized in Derby coverage (among 50 total cameras)
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Thank you ahem dear heart.
That’s as much fun as watching Secretariat take the Derby back in my youth! You do have to feel for the guy on Equinox though-he thought it was a done deal, and then-bam.
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I hate to be the one to pee on everyone’s parade here (actually no I don’t) but those horses are just babies! They’re barely weened and not physically or socially developed enough to race. There are unknown hundreds of catastrophic (read: fatal to the horse) injuries in training every year, and bodies of 2-3 year old colts under tarps at every fucking track. Thoroughbred racing is an inhumane abomination with a mountain of dead behind it, exactly the “sport” I’d expect a bunch of exploitative society assholes to engage in. You can see just how much they “love horses” by the way they jerked and literally punched that colt into the winner’s circle after that amazing race.
Just scroll through this list of track-side deaths, and keep scrolling, and keep scrolling…
Oh but wait, it gets worse! You see, a thoroughbred mare is only good as a baby factory. She’s not allowed to nurse and raise her foal - in order to maximize investment her baby is immediately taken away so she can be rebred on her very next heat, a week after giving birth. So the thoroughbred baby is nursed by another mare that’s not from valuable racing stock. Of course, horses don’t just suddenly lactate if you stick a foal under them, they have to have given birth in order to nurse. So the nurse mare’s own foal is taken away from her…
… and becomes “byproduct.”
Disposed of.
50,000 a year, born to die.
Enjoy the races, y’all.
ETA - I’m not (just) some PETA activist, I have and ride horses.
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Uh ohs.
It appears the jockey is no saint.
Big Red (aka Secretariat) was the same way.
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From the article I posted above regarding the jockey.
He has also been sanctioned for presenting false and altered documents from a physical examination to West Virginia stewards and for inflicting visible injuries on one of his mounts through misuse of the whip.
Who knows what the horse was thinking as it surged ahead but maybe the jockey was encouraging it more aggressively.
I’m rethinking placing any bets on the Preakness.
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