Horses are by nature fragile. So many get injured, breakdown and die that honestly it doesn't even phase me that much anymore. However, the news of Real Quiet's sudden demise has left me a little more bothered than I usually am when it comes to events such as this.
Ever since I started watching racing at the age of five, I've been a sucker for a hard luck horse; and "The Fish" as his connections so affectionally called him was definitely a hard luck horse. As I was told by people, his breeder keeps most of his horses, but when he realized that "the fish" had crooked legs he sold him to Mike Pegram for $17,000. At first it seemed like only a slightly bad deal. Real Quiet was placing and showing in grade 3 events but had a problem breaking his maiden. Of course, we know how this story ends.
The Kentucky Derby rolled around and the betting public made Indian Charlie- Real Quiet's stablemate- the favorite. They were all going on logic. Indian Charlie looked the part. He was tall, strong, athletic and unlike Real Quiet he didn't have screws in his leg. However, the brilliance of horse racing is that the horses don't know about all the reasons that they should or should not win a race. Real Quiet didn't know that his breeder didn't really think he would amount to much, he also didn't know that his stablemate was the one everyone had shown up to see or that his sire was the miler: Quiet American. You see horses don't have the capability to pity themselves and curse their circumstances. Horses can't blame their lack of success on the recession. All a horse knows is that it's his job to get to the wire first and Real Quiet usually got to the wire first. He was rarely on the wrong end of a photo finish. In other words, he was the personification of perseverance.
R.I.P. fish. Your career was an inspiration to us all.
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