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Growing up and into young adulthood, I was a sports junkie. I started playing organized championship sports in the fifth grade. I was born and raised in Indiana where people eat, breathe and sleep basketball. Every elementary school—not to mention junior high and high school—has its own gymnasium. The movie Hoosiers (which is based on another thrilling true underdog story about a high school basketball team from a small town in Indiana during the 1950s—before there were divisions in high school athletics) is an accurate depiction of the place basketball plays in the hearts of the people of Indiana.
I was on the La Porte Park School basketball team during my fifth and sixth grade years. In our fifth grade season we were undefeated and won the city championship. In our sixth grade season, we lost two games to Riley School, but Riley was beaten in the playoffs, and we won our second city championship.
Again, I’m talking elementary school.
Through the rest of my school days—including my first two years of college—I participated in a variety of sports, including basketball, baseball, football, track, wrestling and boxing. When I was a young adult, I still had the same sports craze in my bloodstream. I watched just about every sporting event on television that I could.
I rooted for the Chicago Cubs when Ferguson Jenkins, Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Glenn Beckert, Don Kessinger and Billy Williams were playing on an unlit Wrigley Field. I rooted for the Boston Celtics when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Danny Ainge and Dennis Johnson were on the parquet floor.
I was a Green Bay Packers fan from grade school, watching Vince Lombardi’s star-studded players: Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Boyd Dowler, Elijah Pitts, Carroll Dale, Marv Fleming, Jerry Kramer, Bill Curry, Ray Nitschke, Herb Adderley, Bob Jeter, Willie Wood, et al. And, of course, I watched plenty of Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosier’s games. I’ll never forget Steve Alford’s seven 3-pointers and the game-winning 3-point shot from the corner at the buzzer by Keith Smart to win the national championship in 1987.
I tried to watch the big prizefights featuring the likes of Sonny Liston, George Foreman, Cassius Clay, Floyd Patterson, et al. I liked to watch Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus play golf. I even liked to watch Earl Anthony roll that bowling ball down the alley. I tried to watch the big races like the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500 and the Kentucky Derby.
Through the years, however, not only did I find much more important things to do than watch sports on TV, but all of the corruption, cheating, political correctness and, finally, the Covid tyranny took the enthusiasm for sports totally out of me, to the point I now watch none of it—and haven’t for several years. Plus, I have come to the conclusion that sports—especially football—is being used by the ruling class to keep fighting-age men distracted from what the elites are doing to enslave them.
But here I am writing about the 2022 Kentucky Derby that took place last Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.
Please bear with me and hear me out.
On Monday, my wife showed me a video of Saturday’s race and said I had to watch it. Now, my wife is the total opposite of me when it comes to sports. She has never followed any of it. None. Zero. Zilch. She is a total non-sports person.
But she was all excited and said I had to watch that race. So I did. What a race! I’ve probably watched it twenty times by now. In all of my long life, I have NEVER seen a race like it. In fact, nobody living today has seen a race like it. You would have to have been alive in 1913 to have seen a race like this.
Many devoted horse racing fans are saying this was the greatest race in history. I know it’s the greatest race I’ve ever seen; and you don’t have to argue much to convince me that it IS the greatest race of all time.
Here is one newspaper account of the race—including a video of the race.
The winning horse, Rich Strike, was the last horse added to the starting gate—only moments before the deadline—due to horse number 20 being scratched at the last minute. His odds to win were 80 – 1. Horse, jockey, trainer, groomer and owner were no-names. Rich Strike was purchased for $30,000. He was racing against million-dollar thoroughbreds.
Today Rich Strike is the most popular name in sports.
For as long as I can remember, racing experts have said that no horse can win the big races—and the Kentucky Derby is the biggest—unless the horse is near the front going into the stretch. Rich Strike was in 17th place (out of 20) going into the stretch.
And he beat the biggest names in racing—Epicenter, Messier, Zandon, et al.—in the most spectacular finish perhaps in racing history.
Here is an aerial view of Rich Strike’s remarkable win.
Okay. You can read all of that in a hundred newspapers. Why is Chuck Baldwin using his weekly syndicated column to write about a horse race?
This race shocked the racing world. Thousands of people lost a lot of money. All of the experts were left red-faced and dumbfounded. This no-name horse beat the millionaire racing machines and know-it-all pundits and sports writers—and he did it on horse racing’s biggest stage.
And I might add, Rich Strike did it in STYLE. The look he gave Epicenter when he flew by him at the wire is absolutely priceless.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this race illustrated to my heart what can happen in an instant.
The Kentucky Derby is called “The Most Exciting Two Minutes In Sports.” Indeed it is, especially on May 7, 2022.
Two minutes. Those two minutes last Saturday doubtless changed horse racing for many years to come.
I believe this year’s Kentucky Derby is illustrative of where we are in America. Let’s face it: It doesn’t look good for the United States—or the free world. To put it in racing terms, the odds of America overcoming the billionaire machines that are orchestrating the collapse of freedom, limited government, foundational moral principles and sound economics is about the same as those of Rich Strike winning the Kentucky Derby.
But as I said in my Mother’s Day message last Sunday: “For with God nothing shall be impossible,” quoting Luke 1:37.
I am confident that the ruling class is smugly convinced they are on the verge of total conquest. First the Covid tyranny and now war and economic chaos. It is a one-two punch that has America staggering against the ropes—and ALL the signs are that it will only get worse.
Furthermore, the vast majority of Americans—both conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats—are being sheepishly led around by the nose by the U.S. propaganda machine. And most evangelical churches are part of the propaganda machine.
When the Old Testament prophet Elijah was being hunted by Queen Jezebel, he cried to God from inside a cave and complained that he was the only prophet resisting Ahab’s tyranny. God reminded him that there were yet 7,000 prophets who had not bowed the knee to Baal.
As I look around at the political, civil and religious landscapes, it is easy to start feeling the loneliness and helplessness that Elijah felt. When 80% of evangelicals are a major promoter of the Covid tyranny and war propaganda, any kind of recovery seems as likely as Rich Strike winning the Kentucky Derby.
But when you watch that race, you will see something in that horse that is unmistakable. That horse ran with confidence, courage and HEART. There was something inside that horse last Saturday that would not let him accept defeat. He looked the top millionaire horse in the eye and said, “Not today!” He didn’t know that he was supposed to lose.
Even after the race, the horse was still in a fighting mood. Man! I like that horse!
Rich Strike should be all of us. Forget the odds. Forget the wannabe tyrant billionaires. Forget the corrupt millionaire politicians. Forget the lying propaganda media. Forget the pantywaist preachers.
When God Almighty is ready for His courageous, indefatigable, “Not today!” Remnant to change the race, He can do it in two minutes.
But we must have what that race horse had last Saturday. We must have the courage, stamina, strength and determination to put our whole heart in this race for Truth and Liberty. And, as with Rich Strike, we must be unwilling to accept defeat.
Man! I like that horse!
© Chuck Baldwin
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