A horse walks into a bar and sits down.  The bartender asks, “why the long face?”

Merck, merck, merck.  That one never gets old.

Guest blogger Matt Helwig first introduced us to horse racing with his bracket challenge award winning blog, Back to Back Saturdays in late April (By the way Matt, our prize crew is a little understaffed, so you’ll receive your free T-shirt anytime in the next 5 months).  Fresh off watching the Derby a month ago and the Barbaro special on HBO no more than three hours ago, I feel as if it’s my time to delve into horse racing.  Typically, I would be mad at people like myself who seem to be gettin’ in while the gettin’ is good.  The hype of a Triple Crown winning horse comes up every single year after the Kentucky Derby.  The majority of the time, the hype ends directly after the Preakness a couple of weeks later.  In fact since 1978 (the last Triple Crown winner, there have only been ten horses enter the Belmont Stakes with a chance to go 3 for 3).    Luckily for bandwagon riders like myself, this happens to be one of those years. 

Big Brown comes into Saturday’s race as a ridiculous 1-3 favorite, meaning you ought to throw all your dollars at some other random horse.  History is in the making and after the tragedy at Churchill Downs, the sport of horse racing seems to be back. 

 Big Brown, on the surface, is an awesome name for a bigtime horse.  It’s simple, to the point, and makes you think of greatness.  It’s actually so simple, I truly wondered how lazy the owner got when naming it.  “Well, uhhh, he’s a big horse.  he’s brown.  Hell, let’s name him Big Brown”.  If you were in a brainstorming session, this would be the first name thrown out within the first 15 seconds, and hours would be wasted later thinking of more.  Big Brown, in my eyes, had street cred.  That is until I found out that they were sponsored by UPS and that was the reason for the name.  They may have well as called him “Doo Doo” (not a bad idea for when I own a horse!)  The jockey rocks a UPS hat after victories, but it’s my theory that all UPS delivery guys should be rocking jocky outfits and trot around with sad faces while waiting for the electonic signature (Is there anything harder than signing for a package?  My autograph ends up comparable to a 6 year old signing with the opposite hand).  Regardless, Big Brown is legit and is the reason I’ll be watching the Belmont Stakes this Saturday. 

He’s also one of the main reasons I’ll be heading to Indiana Downs a time or two before the summer is over.  If you haven’t read, both Hoosier Park in Anderson and Indiana Downs (aka Indiana Live Casino) now have slot machines along with all the racing madness.  With both tracks being so close to Indianapolis, I really wonder why I’ve never been to either.  I feel as if now is the time to go.  With the slots in place, expect the purse structure of races to increase substantially.  If you own a horse, this means more money in your pocket and makes owning a horse a viable investment.  After hearing Jim Rome talking about the thrills of owning a horse, I’m seriously considering it as a future hobby.  Betting on horses on a Friday night would be fun enough, but what if you actually owned a horse that was in the hunt coming down the homestretch?  Anybody want to go in with me as the official Bous Theory horse?  I’m thinking all former NBA players as names of my future horse….Randolph Childress, Popeye Jones, Big Shot Bob (Horry), Cherokee Parks, Microwave Johnson, World B. Free, and Jack Haley all sound like winners to me.  Thoughts?  Who wants to go in with me?  If you want more information on owning a horse, go to the Indiana Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Associaton website.

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COMCAST UPDATE:  11:29PM 6/3/08

AWESOME!  Maybe a squirrel chewed threw my line?