Stuff You Should Know - How Thoroughbred Horses Work

Episode Date: November 25, 2011

It's been just 300 years since the Thoroughbred breed has been around, but it has produced some of the most storied animals humans have ever loved. Chuck and Josh dive into what makes these horses special and the controversy around racing them. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call,

like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Nice. Thank you. That was a pretty good horse. Was that a mare? A mare? A filly? A pole? A yearling? A gelding? A colt? A dam? A horse? A stallion? A pony? Do you know a lot more about horses after reading this? I do. And I was going to ask you if we could open up with a little definition, definitions with Chuck and Josh. I think we should. But do your thing

first and then we'll do that. There's just something I was just going to mention. Uncle Moe. All right, let's hear it. Uncle Moe is the favorite at the upcoming Breeders Cup. By the time this comes out, the Breeders couple have come and gone because it's November 4th and 5th, which is this weekend. It is, isn't it? And Uncle Moe is the favorite for the Breeders Cup, the real one, because you know, for something like a Breeders Cup and it's four or five, the fourth and fifth, so two days, they're going to have like 50 races because on a race day, there's like usually like 10 to 13. So they'll probably have 20. And the big one is the last one in this case. And the Breeders Cup is going to be at Churchill, Churchill Downs. Nice. In Kentucky, where they hold the

Kentucky Derby and Uncle Moe's favorite. He's 5-2 choice by odds maker Mike Battilia, who I'd not heard of until I read this article about Uncle Moe. But he scratched. I was going to see him at the Kentucky Derby and he scratched with a liver problem. So he didn't make it to post. That's sad. And I can't remember. I think Animal Kingdom ended up winning. But I went to the Kentucky Derby, you and me and I did. And then we went to the Preakness. And after that, I was like, I have to know more about this. So I came back and started researching and wrote this article, how thorough breads work. And now the next horse race you go to, you'll be the most obnoxious person there. No, I'll keep my mouth shut. I bet a lot of people know a lot. And I bet a lot of people

know nothing. Yeah. Well, we're at the big ones like that. Yeah. Well, yeah, I would say most of the people there know nothing at the big ones because it's just filled with tourists. Sure. And for some people, it's like, hey, I come here every day. It's just another race day. Right. Get out of here. Right. But ultimately, and because of Perry Muteau, Muteau Well, betting. Interesting. It's what it's Perry. Perry Muteau. That's what it is. But it's a French word. Your odds go up and down depending on how many other people are betting on a horse or betting against it or whatever. So I imagine if you are like just one of those people where the Kentucky Derby is just another race day for you, you hate that day, the first Saturday in May.

You probably skip it. Maybe. Because you got a line. Well, yeah, true. Yeah. As mutters a mutter. Yeah. So let's do your definition, Chuck. All right. A colt is a male under five years old. Philly is a female under five years old. Right. But from age two to age five. The yearling is either one or two years old. Okay. A foal is newborn. Yeah. Correct. And it's also a verb. Being foaled is being born. Right. A sire is the father, which is a stallion. Yeah. Stallion is an adult male horse. Over five years old. Right. But also a stud if he's doing that for money. Or is he a stud no matter what? He's a stud no matter what. That's what I like to think. And then the dam, the D.A.M., is the female, which is a mare.

Right. And she is a breeder over five. Yeah. And she produces a, if she produces a female, it's a brood mare, or is she a brood mare? She's a brood mare. Okay. So a brood mare and a stud are one and the same. But different breeds. Different genders. Or genders, yeah, sorry. Yes. But they are, that's all the act of doing it. After that, when reproduction takes over, they become a sire in a dam in relation to the foal. And a pony is just a small horse, which is very disappointing. Yeah. Well, unless you meet one, then you're like, I'm not at all disappointed by this Shetland pony. Yeah. Shetland ponies are awesome. All right. So that'll help you out here going through this excellent article, I might add.

Thank you. Thank you. It was very good. Well, I really like thoroughbred horses are really interesting. They're fairly new. And it's one of those that if you don't know anything about something, you can sit down in 30 minutes and read this and know a lot about something you never knew anything about, which is our goal. Yeah. All right. So let's go. Okay. Well, like I said, thoroughbreds are pretty new. They just came about within the last like 300 or so years. Like they're an entirely new breed. You know that? I do. Well, you want to talk about the beginning of? Yeah. The history of thoroughbreds by Josh Clark. Every thoroughbred alive comes from one of three bloodlines, which is really remarkable. Right. Well, let's hear you give me a little

background, then we'll talk about the horses themselves. So this breed has three foundation sires is what they're called. And they're so they're three stallions that all belong to the Oriental group. And the Oriental group are Turks, barbs, and Arabians. Very fast. Like these are the ones that you see in Lawrence of Arabia, hauling through the desert. Exactly. Very muscular and fast. Yeah, exactly. And what fairly light to right? Like, yeah, I thought you said like. I was like, how do you want me to finish this? Yes, we like them. The Arabians for at least a couple thousand years have been prized for their quickness and their courage. They're very courageous horses. So they were horses. They serve as really good war horses. Yeah.

And because they were quick and because Bedouin shake used to like to make money, however, however he could, including wagers, they would be raised in match races and match races just one horse against one horse. Right. And in about the 17th, the 18th century, the late 17th, early 18th century, three sires arrived in England and those became the foundation sires for the thoroughbred breed. That's right. Each one has a really cool story. If you ask me, I agree. In 1688, Captain Robert Byerly captured a Turk, very fine looking horse, from the Turkoman horse in the Middle East. Right. And that's part of the Oriental group, the Turk, the Turkoman. It's an Oriental horse. Yeah. These are all Oriental horses. Right. And he captured this in a battle in Hungary

and was like, you know what? This horse is really fast and it's really brave. Oh, I'm taking it back to England. Right. And he did. Yeah. And that was number one. Number two was 1704. The Byerly Turk. And this was a stolen Barb, another Oriental, obviously called the Darley Barb or the Darley Arabian purchased by Thomas Darley. And he was a diplomat to Syria. And he said, hey, I love that four year old cult, Mr. Bedouin shake. And so I'd like to purchase from you. And then the shake reneged. And he said, well, I'm going to go steal it from you then if you're not going to give me the horse. And then in Darley's defense, I believe he had paid for it already. So it was just outright theft. He was claiming the horse he purchased. Right. He'd paid somebody to go steal it. And

they smuggled it out through Turkey back to England. And that became the Darley Barb. So now the Darley Barb is there. And then the third one was a little less interesting, but sort of interesting in an underdog sort of way. Yeah. And a Dickensian sort of way. Exactly. The Godolphan Arabian is from Yemen and was given to the king of France along with three other horses in 1724. I'm sorry. He was born in 1724. And being the king of France, he said, I shall set them free and set these horses free. It ends up being a cart horse in Paris. Yeah. Which is kind of cool when you think about it. This was like one of the three sires. Yeah. And eventually was bought and sold and bought and sold until it was finally purchased by the 2nd Earl of Godolphan in 1733.

And I guess that must have been a heck of a horse by that time. Yes. It had seen the ups and the downs. And so these three horses were bred with English mares. And I guess the English horse that they were bred with was a lot bigger, a lot stronger, but a lot slower. And so you took these Oriental group horses and these English horses, English draft horses, maybe even. And what you had was a very strong muscular but extremely quick horse, which was the thoroughbred breed. And so it's a 300 year old breed of animal, which is really cool. And that kind of enlightens us to a characteristic of the breed that from the very beginning, it's interactive with humans. Like it owes its origin to human interaction. Right. Some stats. Okay. What you get with the thoroughbred, Josh, if you want

to throw down a couple hundred bucks on one. Can you get a thoroughbred for 200 bucks? No, you can't. Well, you could, but you'd have to stand outside of the slaughterhouse and just offer some way. Okay. Spoiler alert. You're going to get a horse that is weighs about 1000 pounds, very light and fast, light bones. Yeah. Will be 16 hands, which is a hand is four inches. What you just said. So that's 64 inches. About 25 years old, 66 inches, 64, 64 inches. They'll live to be about 25. They can take about 150 strides per minute and race up to and over 40 miles an hour. Yeah. That's a cooking horse. And we should say that a horse is measured from the ground to its withers, which is a ridge right behind the shoulders to its smithers withers.

And you said that they can run 40 miles an hour. You know why they can run 40 miles an hour? Tell us because of its stride length. Let's talk about his stride length. It's pretty remarkable. Yeah. The average stride length of a thoroughbred horse is 20 feet. Okay. That's long. So you say your Subaru is 15 feet long. My Subaru Outback is 15 feet long. So a stride length is the distance between, let's say the moment the right hoof, right front hoof, any hoof, but let's say the right front hoof touches the ground to the next point where that same hoof that say the right hoof touches the ground again. So on a thoroughbred, an average thoroughbred horse, it's 20 feet. That is long. That's very long. Longer than a Subaru wagon. Yeah. And then

some other horses have had even longer stride lengths like Manowar, who raced in, I think, 1919. He had a stride length of 28 feet when he was in full gal. That's crazy. Eight and a half meters. That's really, really long. And he was taller too, I guess, huh? Maybe. He was a very tall horse. And also, so you've got a stride length of 20 feet, right? They can run up to 150 strides a minute, which means they can go up to 40 miles an hour. Yeah. But they can do this for, like, over a mile, which is amazing. And the reason that they can do this for over a mile is because they're freaks of nature as far as breeds go. Breeds of animals go, right? They are. They have very special internal organs, specifically a very large heart and a very efficient spleen. So

while this heart is able to pump out 70, I'm sorry, circulate 75 gallons of blood a minute when running, that's a lot of blood. It is. The spleen all of a sudden says, you know what, I'm going to kick it into turbo and I'm going to, you know, get a bunch of oxygen-rich blood cells and shoot them all over the bloodstream. And in the end, it's going to increase the total red blood cell count 35 to 65% of the total blood volume. So the red blood cell count or percentage is normally 35. While it's running, it goes up to 65%. It's crazy. So it's just delivering oxygen to every part of the body. It's a running machine. And the thoroughbred has a couple of other unique characteristics as far as its run goes. All horses can only breathe through their nose.

Did you know that? I did. Okay. I did not until I wrote this article. And then they breathe in while their legs are extending and then they exhale while when the legs come together on the ground. So it acts like a bellows. So they're breathing in tons of oxygen very efficiently. And then its legs do something pretty spectacular. Well, its neck does first. Yeah. The neck moves in unison with the front legs, which is going to just give you more propulsion. Yeah. You need to explain the rear hind legs. Okay. So Chuck and I had an atypical discussion because we normally don't discuss things beforehand. But the back legs of a thoroughbred create a spring-like motion. They basically pump up and down, right? Which gives the horse a lot

of thrust. It produces a lot of Gs. Chuck showed me a video. The very same video I looked at to make sure that I knew what I was talking about when I read that. And then, you know, wrote it. That it's not the legs necessarily just staying in like a stiff up and down motion. It's the overall motion that is being created by the legs. The spring-like back legs. Springing. Springing. What I noted about the hind legs is that they stay almost completely straight. So it's just like boing, boing, boing. Spring. Springing down, springing down. However you look at it, the back legs create like a spring-like motion. Very much. That propels the horse forward. So that's why thoroughbreds are so prized for racing. That's right. Because they

take all the speed and the agility of the Arabian and the strength and endurance of the English mayors that they were bred with. Yeah. And you got the thoroughbreds. Got a very special horse. Josh, it wasn't just those three, as you point out, that created the whole bloodline. There was a lot of hanky-panky going on with Oriental group horses that were brought over during wartime from the Middle East. And they really helped the bloodline out, obviously. Yeah. But a lot of them were lost to history because maybe they had only female daughters. And that means that's the end of you. Or at least your bloodline. Or maybe you got it on with a different breed. And that means you're a dirty, dirty horse now. And you can't be counted as a thoroughbred any longer.

You could be, but your offspring is not going to be. Even if they say, all right, fine. I'll go back to the thoroughbred. They're like, nope. You did it with that other kind of horse. So you're done. No, I don't think so. Oh, what? No, it's just your offspring. Oh, okay. So like if the horse never mated with anything but non-thoroughbreds, then it's bloodlines lost. I thought you were saying that if it mated at all. No, no, it's not counted at all. Okay. Well, that's good to know because I thought it was a little harsh. Yeah. No, it's not like that. But all of that is based on a decision that was made in 1791 by a guy named James Weatherby who created this thing called the General Studbook. And that is that all thoroughbreds are traced through the sire. Yeah. So they can

be traced back to the three and all thoroughbreds alive today can be traced back to those three foundation sires. And this General Studbook is a closed registry, meaning only thoroughbred full thoroughbred horses that are born to full thoroughbred parents can be included in this General Studbook. That's right. And more than a hundred thousand are fold worldwide every year. And so that's a lot of horses to keep track of and trace their lineage. Although once you have it done, the first time like the General Studbook serves as the mother ship of which all other Studbooks are based. Right. So you've got the foundation there. You do. So it's not like you have to keep tracing back to the original three. No, once you can link it up to say the last one in the General

Studbook. Exactly. It's last ancestor, then it takes over from there. So thank you, Weatherby's. Well, yeah, well, they still do that. The Weatherby's Limited is still an incorporated company in the UK. I bet they have a nice box there at Churchill Downs. Oh, yeah, they do. Anywhere they want to go. Yeah, anywhere. So yeah, James Weatherby in 1791 was actually the second Weatherby, his uncle. Clem? No, also James. Oh, okay. He was the first secretary of the Jockey Club. And he was hired to keep track of purses, Chuck. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to

distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that will piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wall Street to Main Street

and from Hollywood to Washington, the news is filled with decisions, turning points, deals, and collisions. I'm Tim O'Brien, the senior executive editor for Bloomberg Opinion, and I'm your host for Crash Course, a weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Every week on Crash Course, I'll bring listeners directly into the arenas where epic upheavals occur. And I'm going to explore the lessons we can learn when creativity and ambition collide with competition and power. Each Tuesday, I'll talk to Bloomberg reporters around the world, as well as experts in big names in the news. Together, we'll explore business, political, and social disruptions and what we can learn from them. I'm Tim O'Brien, host of Crash Course,

a new weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Listen to Crash Course every Tuesday on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's a purse? Well, a purse is the winnings, the total amount of money that a horse can win for its owner, I should say. Horses traditionally don't get to keep the money themselves. It goes to the owners who in turn pay the jockeys and all those other people. But the first James Weatherbee was hired in 1770 to basically keep the books for the jockey club. So the Weatherbees are like a family, a long line of accountants, basically. And the reason why the first James Weatherbee was hired was because he was hanging around at a time when they

really needed to start keeping track of the incredible sums of money that were being bet on these races. Yeah, what happened was, as soon as two rich people get something fast, they're going to want to race against each other. So that's what happened, and they were just like, let me race my horse against yours. And then that became like, well, let's have a few races, and let's add even more horses. And horse racing, very organically, thoroughbred racing, was very organically born. And like you said, then once things are racing, some dude's going to want to bet. And then all of a sudden, it's a huge cottage industry that the Weatherbees were put in charge of. Yeah, exactly. Back in 1770, when he was hired, the purses were reaching something like 2,000

pounds. A lot of money. There's a lot, a lot. I didn't see a conversion for today's dollars, but it's a lot of pounds. Yeah, it's a lot. So they hired the Weatherbees, and ultimately James Weatherbee, the younger, created the General Stubbook, which like you said, is like the central Stubbook for all the others. America has its own. The American Stubbook goes back to 1868. And thoroughbreds in America go back far, far earlier than that. Yeah, 1730, I think, was the first one. Yeah, Bull Rock, which is a pretty cool name. That's a heck of a stallion. Yeah. Bull Rock. So Bull Rock was here, and apparently there was horse racing on Long Island as far back as the late 17th century. Oh, really? Yeah. But thoroughbreds, bloodlines are kept,

such exact records are kept of the bloodlines that they basically said, you guys had a civil war, we're not sure of your records any longer, start over. So the American Stubbook goes back to 1868, and that's it. As far as anybody's concerned, the beginning of thoroughbred horses in America. Yeah. And then in 1913, the Jockey Club passed the Jersey Act, which basically said, a lot of these American horses don't count because unless you're in these other books, then you can prove that than your SOL. Right. If your parents don't show up in other general Stubbooks that were previously published, then whatever. And since there was a break in the records, a lot of American horses couldn't get in there. That's right. Until 1949, and they felt bad for them and said,

you know what, we're going to let you in, and you're now in the Stubbook. So if the Stubbook says who's in and who's out, and the Jockey Club controls the Stubbook, that means that the Jockey Club basically defines what a thoroughbred horse is. And when I say basically, I mean in every single sense of the word. Sure. So color, there's nine colors. They cover everything, though, don't they? Like what colors are horses that aren't listed is what I wondered. Any kind of neon is left out. They also determine whether the name is appropriate, which, you know, you've seen some pretty silly horse names, but you notice that you've never seen one that was a slur, like a racial slur, social slur. No. Never one that's offensive.

Never one that was named after someone famous unless they said, hey, you should name this after me, the WC Fields. Well, no, if you're if they're alive still. I thought they had to have consent. You have a living famous person. I think you can't get him from a dead person. No. Interesting. Not without reanimation. Oh, I just thought like the state could give consent or maybe. But I think I think I remember seeing that part of the rules. It's a live person. Interesting. Yeah. And it cannot. The name cannot consist of entirely of numbers, makes sense, I guess. But and you can also name like you can't name it after another winning horse traditionally. Yeah. Unless it's like a play on it. Like Seabiscuit was a son of

like Hardtack, I think. Yeah. Those that type of bread that sailors ate. But could you name one like Teabiscuit? You could, but I'll bet everybody think you're a jerk. Teabiscuit 90937894. Well, and it says the Jockey Club has a final authority, so they might just shut that down on, you know, hinkiness alone. Yeah. And they can say, name your horse whatever you want, but it's not coming in the register and you're like, okay, all right, all right, all right, I'll let you. All right, Josh, we were talking about purses and it is big money now in the U.S. alone in 2010. The gross purses total more than a billion dollars. That was actually a pretty big decline. Well, not big, but there was there was it was worth more even earlier. Like 2004-2005

was a huge peak for purses in the U.S. for horse racing. Yeah. Well, that means if there's a lot of money to be won as a horse owner, that means there's a lot of money to be made as a horse owner and paid as a horse owner. It's very expensive. Yes. In fact, I looked into this when I wrote that article on unusual investments for Sunday paper. Yeah. One of them was investing in horses. I remember. And it didn't seem like a very good idea at the time. This is before the horse bubble, though, because of how much it costs to maintain a horse. You know, and just like you can buy into it without owning a horse like almost like stock in these operations. So there, I think the problem is then would be like the chance, the percentage of a chance

that you have of that particular horse really bringing home big money. Well, you've got the chances in here. 60 to 65 percent of all yearlings fold in a given year will be trained to race. So almost all of them are trained to race. They're almost literally born to race. And only about five percent of those will win any kind of substantial purse. And I think you said, what is it like? Point two percent of that 65 percent will ever win a grade one stakes race. And grade ones are the big ones like the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness. Point two percent, man. That's very low. It is extremely low. And I mean, if you have a horse that wins like a daily race, a couple of days a week, and it's 40 grand, and it's just a reliable winning horse,

you're still going to make some money off of it. But still, the big problem that all thoroughbred horse owners face is you have a very, very limited time to race your horse like all prime athletes, except even shorter, very much shorter. Cigar was a very long lived or had a long racing life. He had 16 consecutive wins, but he raced until he was five. He was five when he raced. So he raced even longer than just his fifth birthday. But for the most part, like I mentioned Manowar, he raced like 18 times, I believe. And it was over the course of like 1919 and 1920. It wasn't like two full years. And he is one of the greatest race horses of all time. Well, the window, I mean, just to be at that peak of physical condition, the window is just so

small because they're the best of the best. So if you drop off by what are the lengths called? Like a head length or a fur long, a fur long, an eighth of a mile is a fur long. If you drop off by just a tiny, the tiniest bit, you're done. Yeah. So that's why I guess most of the Coltson Phillies are two to three, even though all the triple crown races are three years old only, right? Yep. And fact of the show, they're all born on, well, they're not all born, but they all have the same birthday to help keep track of bloodlines. And what is that? Just January first. January first. But that means that the horses racing could potentially be 364 days apart from each other in age. But they're all considered one year old. They're all considered one.

Which is a problem if you are a horse that's born on December 31st, 2011. On January 1st, 2012, you're considered one. And if you are going to race, you're going to have to race horses of your own age for like the Kentucky Derby's only open to three year olds. So yeah, the other horses in your class have a whole year's worth of training ahead of you and they're going to dust you. Which means that if you are a dam and you're pregnant and you're about to give birth on December 31st, your owners are probably injecting you with drugs that are going to keep you from going into labor. Yeah. Yet another example of how humans have, like always, they play an interventionist role in the thoroughbred breed. And if you are a little baby born fold that's born in, let's say, June,

you're not going to be very valuable. They want horses that are born probably in the first couple of months of the year. Right. Usually the first half of the year. And I guess here now we kind of reach like the somewhat depressing part. Well, the extremely depressing part of thoroughbred racing and why I don't go to horse or dog races any longer. Well, so we talked about injecting a dam with with drugs to keep her from going into labor. If you're a sire, it might sound cool at first, right? But having a lot of sex, I'm sure it adds up. If you are especially if you're a stud, if you're collecting stud fees, that means that you're probably owned by a breeding syndicate that just makes their money like an investment group that makes their money by by hiring you out

for stud called covering. That's what it's called when horses do it. Yeah. And they're going to make you do it very, very, very frequently. Yeah. As many as three females a day for six month stretches for 20 years or more. Yeah. And if things don't go well, you will be killed slaughtered for the most part. In Great Britain alone in 2011, the observer reported that almost 8,000 horses were slaughtered there in 2010, which was a 50% increase over 2009. And they don't let you slaughter horses in the United States anymore since 2007. So we ship them to Canada to do it. Right. And then in Canada, about two thirds of all thoroughbred race horses are euthanized slaughtered or abandoned from racing. I'm sorry, not in Canada, but just in

the United States after they retired after they retire from racing in Canada, about 120,000 horses, including thoroughbreds, not just thoroughbreds, were slaughtered in 2009. So that's a big problem. And we actually know where this problem came from. You said it earlier. It's a horse bubble. Yeah. I mean, it was literally almost the exact same scenario as the housing bubble, except we didn't go out and kill houses. No. So basically what happened was there was a lot of money to be made in horses. People started getting their sires to cover more and more frequently, which means that more and more foals were born and the number of foals born in a given year is called the full crop. More and more foals meant the market was saturated, which meant that

prices dropped, finally normalized, which meant that there was a lot of, and I'm making quotes here because I don't actually think this, but surplus foals, which led to an increase in slaughter, euthanasia, and just general like abandonment of foals that didn't quite meet the requirements, couldn't be sold very well, which meant the horse bubble burst, which is good in one way because it means that the breed is no longer being rampantly abused as it was a couple of years ago. It also means that if you're an enthusiast or a breeder, that the breed itself is going to get better because apparently rampant reproduction led to kind of a decrease in emphasis in quantity over quality. Right. That's going to change. That's right. The war on drugs impacts everyone,

whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that will piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being

robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. From Wall Street to Main Street and from Hollywood to Washington, the news is filled with decisions, turning points, deals and collisions. I'm Tim O'Brien, the senior executive editor for Bloomberg Opinion, and I'm your host for Crash Course, a weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Every week on Crash Course, I'll bring listeners directly into the arenas where epic upheavals occur. And I'm going to explore the lessons we can learn when creativity and ambition collide with competition and power. Each Tuesday, I'll talk to Bloomberg reporters around the world,

as well as experts in big names in the news. Together, we'll explore business, political, and social disruptions, and what we can learn from them. I'm Tim O'Brien, host of Crash Course, a new weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Listen to Crash Course every Tuesday on the iHeart radio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. But the problem is whether or not anybody will learn anything from it. Well, yeah, and the problem too is this breeding, very specific scientific breeding of this horse is, even when they do it perfectly right, you've got a scenario where you've got a horse with very light bones. But you know, this one writer said the heart of a locomotive in champagne glass ankles. Yeah. So as we all saw in 2006, when

Barbaro very gruesomely broke its foot, his they tried to fix it. But I think that was, I don't know, they didn't fix it, euthanized in 2007. And then eight bells, they just euthanized her right on the track, which was very sad at Churchill Downs in 2008. So animal aid, if you want to look into organizations like that, they do a good job. They documented 729 horses that were injured and euthanized from March 2007 to August 11. And you know, depending on which way you fall on that fence, the information's out there. Yeah, there's also a ton of thoroughbred and just horse and general, but there's a lot of thoroughbred rescue organizations that take in abandoned or retired or whatever, thoroughbred horses that aren't wanted any longer and care for them.

Get one, ride it around your property. Exactly. Real fast. Keep it as a watch horse. Yeah. Also, I want to mention something before anybody writes in January 1st is the universal birth date for thoroughbred horses in the northern hemisphere in the southern hemisphere is August 1st. Thoroughbred horses, lovely, lovely, lovely animals. They're beautiful. They are. Let's see. There's a pretty cool documentary. It's sad because Barbara was in it. Oh man, it's sad. It's called, I think, the first Saturday of May. It's a documentary about the Kentucky Derby and specifically the 2006 Kentucky Derby and all the horses that are starting to make their way toward it. It's really neat. And then, of course, you can read my article on thoroughbreds. If you

want to learn more about thoroughbreds, go read that article. Type in thoroughbreds, T-H-O-R-O-U-G-H-B-R-E-D-S in the handysearchbar at HouseTheForce.com. And that will bring up this article. And I said handysearchbar, so it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm going to call this cool kid from Minnesota. This is from Gage. He even has a cool name. Yeah, that's a pretty cool name. Hey guys, I'm 15 years old. I am from Moose Lake, Minnesota, where it is winter for about nine months out of the year. I play hockey, golf, and I water ski. You can see water skis in those three months. I'm in the 10th grade. I'm on track to be one of the youngest graduates in school history. Nice. People are starting to ask me what I want to do when I'm older. I usually say doctor because

I find the human body and especially the brain extremely fascinating, mostly to save time in the explanation of what I really want to do. Guys, ever since the first episode, okay, maybe not the first for a long time, I've wanted to work for howstuffworks.com. So neurologist or right for how stuff works? I'm wondering what kind of qualifications I would need and if there's any way to get a leg up on the competition. I'm a major fan. I won't say biggest because I know you wouldn't believe me, but you two have been big role models for me and I hopefully will continue to look up to you. No pressure. Hopefully as long as we're going to screw it up. So please write back with any advice and good luck to you. I did write Gage back. Did you tell him that a good way to

get a leg up over the competitions for his parents to give us money? Yeah, and then just to submit your letter and your portfolio and your little tryout article. It's really easy to get a job here, or it was. Now we're not hiring a lot of full-time riders anymore, unfortunately. What advice can we give him? I think we should make him a blogger for stuff you should know. Oh, that's a good idea. In fact, our boss even mentioned, I showed him this email and he was like, yeah, what if we could get this kid some work? And I said, sure, he can blog for me. So what did he say? He kind of died there, but it could be resurrected if Gage was up for something like that. I feel like you really just applied the pressure. Maybe so. All right, Gage, let's get

this ball rolling. Why don't you ride us back after you hear this and take a nice little victory lap around your high school, wearing a parka, because it's going to be cold. And if you think Gage should blog, we want to hear about it, right? I think you should under the name Charles W. Bryant. If you want to see if you can tell the difference between a Chuck blog and a Gage blog, let us know. We'll get this started. We'll figure out what shape it's going to take eventually, but just show us some support so Chuck can get out of blogging. Tweet to us, maybe pound go Gage or something like that. That's S-Y-S-K podcast. You can do something on Facebook at facebook.com slash stuff you should know. And you can send us regular old emails at stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com.

Excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hola que tal mi gente. It's Chiquis from Chiquis and Chill podcast. Welcome to the show. I talk about anything and everything. I did have a miscarriage when I was 19 years old and that's why I'm a firm believer and an advocate of therapy and counseling. The person that you saw on stage, the person that you saw in interviews, that was my mother

offstage. Acompaneme every Monday on my podcast Chiquis and Chill available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.