What many horse racing handicappers don't understand is that in the process of trying to decipher the possible outcome of a race they are also trying to understand what a horse or horses may do or think. Having owned race horses I can tell you that is no easy trick. After many years around horses, both the racing kind and others, I can tell you I still don't understand them most of the time. Many people have commented about how much easier life would be if they could just talk to us.

If they could talk to us maybe the first thing that horses would do is tell us that they want to get paid for what they do, so maybe it isn't such a bad idea that they can't speak. On the other hand, as in the case of the poor performance of Big Brown in The Belmont, it would certainly be a relief for the trainer, jockey, and owner to hear the colt's side of the story and why he didn't seem to have it. One thing I can tell you about horses is that they aren't rational thinkers or rocket scientists by human standards. But once they learn something, including bad or dangerous habits, it is almost impossible to "un-learn" them.

I once owned a little filly named "Bomb Strike," who was a pretty good trotting horse. I was harness racing at the time and I bought her on the advice of my trainer who thought he could improve her with some TLC. What I didn't know was that Bomb Strike had developed the dangerous habit of bolting through doorways, sideways. Some time in her life before I owned her she had accidentally turned while she was passing through a doorway and had suffered a nasty gouge on her hip. After that unpleasant incident she was terrified of doorways including her stall gate even though the wound was treated and healed just fine.

The injury wasn't racing related and could have happened to any horse. As most horse owners will tell you, though they are large and strong, horses often hurt themselves in the barn or pasture, often because they are spooked by something as simple as a shadow or blowing leaf. Just like some people I know, a horse can often be his or her own worst enemy.

Bomb Strike is a little horse, but even a little horse can be dangerous if she bolts while you are leading her through a barn. What made the problem even worse was that she would sometimes irrationally try to bolt through a doorway other than the one you were trying to lead her through. As she went through any door she would almost always turn and bang herself on the door frame.

We tried many ways to help her to overcome her fear and also padded as many doorways as we could and tried to avoid doorways. But in racing you eventually have to lead your horse through some doorways. Sometimes she would stand quivering in front of a door and then bolt through it and other times she would see an open doorway and rush to it before I was prepared for her move.

She never overcame her fear so the decision was made to let her live on a farm and do what all good filly's eventually want to do, she became a mother and now spends her days at pasture. It seemed the best decision for her own welfare though she certainly had many good races left in her and my trainer was willing to try to keep working with her. She loved to race and was very aggressive on the track despite her small stature, but on the farm she is quiet and peaceful, enjoying her foal and the wide open spaces.

If I could have talked to her I could have explained that she was hurting herself, but I couldn't make her understand that and she couldn't tell me why she kept making the same mistake. She always did her best for me, so I did what I thought was best for her. I just let her be a horse in a natural setting where she was happy.

Big Brown couldn't tell us why he ran poorly in The Belmont and horse racing handicapping will continue to be shrouded in mystery as long as horses can't talk. On the other hand, the communication problems add to the challenge and mystery whether you are raising horses or trying to predict their next race performance. Learning to watch and try to understand them is part of the job and challenge of good horsemanship.