Friday, February 28, 2014
Monday, February 3, 2014
Tuesday write
One other topic of Gladwell's research that I found interesting was his belief that everything deserves a closer look, from spaghetti to the choices people make. Everything is not as black and white as it seems, there is always a gray area. Life is more complex than what it appears on the surface and society should not take anything for granted.
A phenomenon Gladwell has encouraged me to take a closer look at is Zenyatta's loss at the Breeder's Cup Classic. I have long been fascinated with horses as my father and I have been involved with horse racing for many years. In fact, my father, a jockey of eighteen years, also shares the same curiosity of Zenyatta's loss. Zenyatta, a prodigy of the century, clearly was the favorable horse, yet lost by a nose. At first I assumed that she had lost because she tried to make her move from too far behind. But now, after looking back on the race, many other factors came into the loss. First, the surface she was running on was not the typical synthetic surface she was used to, she was on tapeta. Additionally, she battled unfavorable conditions as she was trailing horses kicking up dirt in her face. After the race, Zenyatta's jockey, Mike Smith, took blame for the loss saying "he shouldn't have let her get so far behind at the beginning with those conditions".
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