Horsefeathers!

I'm sure you've already heard, but Erica from America (the horse) didn't do so well at the races on Sunday. As I previously posted here, a racing horse named after this very blog made his racing debut this past weekend, and the end result was more anti-climactic than I had anticipated.

Erica from America ended up coming in second to last, and you can read the final stats here.

It seems my horse couldn't be bothered to keep up with the other guys, and was content to keep to a relaxing gallop as he took in his surroundings on the racetrack. As my stepfather told me afterward: "Maybe she was reading a book."

Yes, my stepfather said she. As you'll remember from my last post on the subject, I explained that Erica from America is a male horse with a girl's name. Which sometimes happens in horse racing. However, both my mother and stepfather now believe the horse is a girl. We have yet to come to a decisive conclusion on this. My stepfather's dad, the owner of the horse, will surely be able to sum this up, and I'll write back shortly as soon as we have final word.

My first horse experience took place in London, when I tried to understand the sport of polo and ended up flat on my back in the mud instead. Read more about that here. That was my first time on a horse, and I could have never predicted that two years later I would be so invested in the horse racing industry.

For now, I'll say I'm still content with the efforts of the androgynous Erica from America. That's a weird sentence for me to write. I'm sure he/she did his/her best, and I'm sure we'll see good things from him/her in the future. Until then, here's a video of Hal's Hope, the most successful horse to come out of my step-grandfather's stable so far. In 2000, he won the Florida Derby, and here's his moment of glory: