I haven't said much about Eight Belles, but there has been discussion on my f'list about her, including the fact she was about 17 hands as a heavily-worked three-year-old. Which is just asking for trouble.

And I had this flash in my head of Coach Girl's gently didactic voice explaining to one of her students that she only rode her 17.2-hand four-year-old, Benson, for about fifteen minutes every couple of days because "he's so big, it'll take him a long time to really grow into himself. We just want to make sure he knows his manners and that he has a job to do, eventually."

Um, yeah. Benson acts like he knows he's a pretty lucky horse, but he has no idea just how lucky he is.

That is all.