Horse (in)sense(d)

It's times like these I dearly miss my old writerly invention, Mister Ted, the talking horse I conjured some years back because I figured if anyone could speak intelligently about the Kentucky Derby in something I wrote, it would be a talking horse. And particularly a smartass talking horse.

The smartass, of course, is what got him killed eventually. Wised off one too many times at the wrong human, and now he's connecting the wing to the fuselage in little Johnny's killer model of a P-51 Mustang.

Yet I can still imagine how he'd react to the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years getting beaten out by a tennis player for Sports Illustrated's Sportsperson of the Year.

That's what happened today when SI announced Serena Williams had beat the winner of its own online poll, American Pharoah, and needless to say the horse people were not pleased. Pretty much called it a travesty, is what they did. Even had fake horse Twitter accounts weighing in on it, which is what got me to thinking about Mister Ted.

This being 2015, Mister Ted would surely have a Twitter account, too. Something along the lines of @smarterthanthewriterguy, given the disdain with which he always treated me.

"Guessing the Writer Guy will defend the tennis player," he might have tweeted.

"Typical for a doofus who always wanted to call me 'Mister Ed'," he might also have tweeted, no doubt adding #doofus #misteredwasmyfather

He'd be wrong, of course. I actually see the horse peoples' point; I mean, something happens for the first time in almost four decades, attention must be paid. And it's not like Serena hasn't been dominant for quite awhile now, although she was extra dominant this year in winning three of the four Grand Slams and reaching the final in the fourth.

Plus, she's human. It is, after all, Sportsperson of the Year, not Sportsmammal of the Year.

This might betray a certain anti-equine bias on SI's part. But it's not like the horse people don't have their own biases, some of them more disgusting than others.

One of them, for instance, tweeted the only reason Serena won was because she's black. Although Pharoah is kind of reddish, so I don't know how that works.

Maybe SI, given the vaguely sexist way it chose to pose Serena on its cover, decided she had better legs. Although Pharoah's got twice as many of them and they're pretty photogenic, too, so there goes that theory.

I'm sure @smarterthanthewriterguy would have something smartass to say about that, too.

But he's model airplane glue now, thanks to me. Humans win again.