The world is fast. Time keeps ticking and we react by trying to keep up.
If that movie doesn’t download in 30 seconds, we scowl in disapproval. If that car in front of us isn’t driving, we swerve out of the lane, and check what’s ahead. We drive faster, walk quicker and talk with increasing speed, always racing to the next finish line. We hurry and rush as a matter of course. It`s a big part of the lives that many of us know.
But the hours still pass, and the days still add up. Our loved ones still grow older. We don`t slow up time by rushing past it. Instead, we wake up one day and ask where the time went.
And then you have the horse racing business. It is constant. The rush out of bed, into the barn, to the track. Days on the farm are long and hard, with early mornings and late nights. Rush hour traffic, road construction, the race night paddock routine. The workload never wanes.
And just when you`ve hit the wall, done your final chores, put away the last horse… you pause. You look in at him, and in one glance, you realize that he`s the one thing in your life that can`t be rushed.
You waited 11 long months for him to enter this world. Then you waited each night for his mother to be ready. You saw him take his first steps, and made sure he was treated with the utmost respect in the earliest days of his life. Even during the toughest times, you reminded yourself that a good horse can`t be hurried. And he reminded you when you forgot. You waited, and waited, for him to show you he was ready. And when he wasn’t, you gave him more time. Months… Years…
You let him heal from sickness, rested him when he was tired, and allowed him room to come into his own, on his schedule. He let you know when he was ready.
We may not ever discover the meaning of life, but I`d guess we have a better chance figuring it out by looking into the eye of a racehorse than into the screen of a smartphone.
This journey we`re all on is far bigger than how fast a trotter goes, or how much a pacer wins by. We`ll ultimately all hit the finish line at some point. And nobody will marvel at how fast we got there, or the margin that we defeated our closest rival. They will look at the chart line of our days, talk about the company we kept, the race we contested, and the manner in which we carried ourselves.
I believe that everything in life happens for a reason. And by extension, horse racing isn`t in our lives by accident. It may be easier to be rushed, and hurried, but if we listen to our horses – really listen, they will teach us more about going slow than we could ever teach them about going fast.
Darryl Kaplan
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