You mourn your heroes and I'll mourn mine

Eight Belles goes down with two broken ankles


Admittedly, among my many addictions (hockey, electronic music, caffeine), I’m also a news junkie. As soon as I pry my eyes open at zero-dark-thirty for work, the news is on. I have 5-6 news feeds tied to my Google start page. On my drive to & from work, I’m either listening to ESPN or talk radio; music is for leisure driving. On my lunch break, I eat in my car to listen to the news.

That said, all I heard yesterday morning was Eight Belles this and Eight Belles that on a continual loop. Every few minutes I had to listen to the same soundbyte of how these horses put their lives on the line and that she was glad to do it, blah blah blah and how PETA wants the jockey publicly stoned and then burned at the stake, yadda yadda yadda. Sure, it’s a damn shame that such a magnificent animal, just three years old, had to be euthanized, but frankly I was getting a bit worn out on hearing about her freakish double-leg break and subsequent destruction in front of a hundred thousand people. I’m sure that there are now hundreds of bouquets of roses and wreaths and stuffed horses and hand-scrawled notes saying “We’ll miss you Eight Belles” piled up at the front gate to Churchill Downs in some grand makeshift memorial to what really was an overbred draft animal, and trust me when I guarantee that while the ownership of the animal is grieving the loss of their little four-legged money-maker, the animal was generously insured, likely for much more than you or I are. I believe I covered this before here:
http://mojosteve.blogspot.com/2007/05/ah-barbarowe-hardly-knew-ye.html

So, instead, allow me to refocus your sympathy and kind thoughts to another death last week, one that was overshadowed by the death of an expensive animal, sadly under-reported and generally overlooked by the drive-by media.

On April 30, four days before the Kentucky Derby, Staff Sergeant Chad A. Caldwell of Spokane, Washington was killed by an IED in Mosul, Iraq while conducting dismounted combat operations. SSG Caldwell was a squad leader assigned to Troop K, 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood, Texas.

SSG Caldwell joined the Army in 2002 after graduating from high school in 2001. He and his wife, Raechel, met while they were high schoolers and working part-time at a telemarketing firm. They were married in 2002, just before Caldwell entered basic training. They have two boys; Trevor, age 4; and Coen, age 2.

At the time of his death, SSG Caldwell was on his third combat tour. He initially served in Iraq in 2003-4 and also previously completed a tour in Afghanistan in 2007. SSG Caldwell is also survived by his mother, Carol Caldwell of Spokane, his father, Mark Caldwell of Hayden Lake, and his brother and sister, Justin and Krista, both of Spokane. He had planned to make the military his career.

Caldwell was a heavily decorated soldier. He received two Army Commendation Medals--one for saving the life of a pregnant woman in Baghdad in 2003 and a second for saving the life of a lieutenant colonel who was caught in gunfire. He had been featured in news articles in both the USA Today and Stars and Stripes.

So worry all you want about a horse, and I’ll worry about a valiant hero who was somebody’s son, brother, husband, and father. Rest in Peace, Chad.


SSG Chad Caldwell in Iraq



The Caldwell Family before Chad deployed

Ah, Barbaro...we hardly knew ye.....

Sometimes I start a blog with all intention of finishing it quickly and posting it in a timely manner, especially when I’m commenting on a current newsworthy topic. But, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and this blog is a few months late once again.


Ahhhh, Barbaro, we hardly knew ye……

Recently, the American Sheeple were saddened by the euthanizing of beloved Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. To hear the newsies say it, the entire nation as a whole mourns the January 29th death of a beloved sporting icon, a courageous fighter who finally succumbed to his traumatic injuries.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? It’s all about money.

Yes, he was a fast, beautiful, graceful animal. He won the Kentucky Derby and was poised to possibly win the entire Triple Crown. And more so, he was going to make a number of people ungodly filthy rich. Once he was injured on May 20th 2006, that gravy train derailed. If he had recovered, Barbaro would have been worth about 30 million dollars. That’s prize money up front, and stud fees for the rest of his natural life. Thoroughbreds, unlike other animals, cannot be bred through artificial insemination; the rules to their particular sport dictate that only natural mating may produce a thoroughbred horse. So, run a few times in a circle, get paid to screw the rest of your life….30 million bucks worth? Hey, not a bad deal. Even Ron Jeremy envies that deal.

Of course, there was insurance. LOTS of insurance. There was not only death coverage, but stud insurance too in case he was incapacitated and could no longer mount a mare to breed. So, the owners still got paid; just not as much as had he lived. But I’m willing to bet they were pulling his weasel every day he was in that vet office, freezing his skeet to sell…he might not have sired any immediate thoroughbred offspring but how many spurious fuckers are out there willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for black-market underground breeding stock?

He spent several months in lavish doctors’ care at a recovery facility in Pennsylvania, with thousands of people showing their love by shipping him crates of apples and carrots as treats. Are you fucking kidding me? Spending scads of money to ship perishable produce to a horse…a fucking horse, people……a horse who was already getting better medical care than 90% of Americans. And these are the same people who wouldn’t even think to send a leftover packet of Arby’s horseradish sauce to starving people in Darfur, but they send apples to a 30-million-dollar jumped-up pack animal.

In a sinister coincidence, Barbaro’s jockey at the time of his accident, Edgar Prado, was riding the British-owned horse Funfair at the 2005 Breeder’s Cup a year before the Barbaro incident. At the start of the race, Funfair broke a hind leg in much the same way Barbaro did, and it was so badly torn up that the horse was killed right on the track. How many more millions of rich hoity-toity dollars must be lost before this man is stopped?