Why I Hate Race Horses

My heart is a blackened pitt of ash, and you know why? Because my ex-boyfriend left me for a race horse.

His name is Nils, and he is bullimic. Not the horse, the jockey.

That’s right. Nils is a jockey, and we dated for 2 years before I discovered his unnatural affection for Salsa Baby, his racing mare.

And before Salsa Baby it was Smokeless Gunpowder, and Always on My Mind, and Trudy of Versailles, and Miss Molly Gee Golly and probably countless others I didn’t know about.

You see, Nils had a problem. He was a zoophiliac.

I suppose things were never really right between Nils and me from the start. I met Nils when I was enjoying some McDonald’s hash browns before work. He walked past me to refill his cup of black coffee, and the first thing I noticed were his cute jeans. Man did Nils have the best jeans. He wore a size 26 in women’s jeans, and he only wore designer denim. I loved him for that. I offered to buy him a hash brown to go with his coffee and tiny jeans, but when I said “hash brown,” his eyes got big with sadness.

“I can’t eat no damn hashbrowns,” he said as he stared off into the distance.

“Oh, well I’m gonna go back for seconds,” I said.

I could feel Nils’ eyes following me to the food counter with a bitter hatred. I didn’t understand why until things got more serious between us, and I realized Nils kept his weight down by purging. This is how he managed to stay at 108 pounds. I hated Nils for this because he was so petite. He always wanted to borrow my skinny jeans, but then he’d complain that he’d have to safety pin the waist from the back because they were so big.

Sure, Nils and I had some good times. I loved the way he’d brush my long hair and feed me cut up apples and carrots. He was so gentle. But other times, he could become aggressive and wild-eyed. On race days, it was the worst. Just the sight of food would send him into a wild frenzy of anger and violence. One time I came home and found all the food in the refrigerator gone. He’d put it all into our garbage barrell and then he ignited the large pile. You could see the smoke for miles. Thankfully, I got home before he could burn the food that was in the pantry. I cried out, “Nils, what have you done?!!” Then he cried like a little girl. The laxatives made Nils a sensitive man. I’d usually end up having to pick him up like a baby and put him into a warm bath; then I’d delicately place him into his bed with the restraints.

The restraints weren’t my idea - they were Nils’. He thought he needed to sleep with restraints on because he might get up in the middle of the night and binge eat.

There were some other red flags in our relationship. Nils was always falling off his horse and breaking his bones. I had to be very careful with him, and he often insisted that the only female who understood the way he needed to be touched was Salsa Baby. I thought it was weird that he’d say that, but I figured it was part of the jockey-horse bond, so I ignored it. Dealing with his frequent injuries was beginning to get tiresome though. He was always complaining about his pancreatitis, or his “knife butt” as he called it. I also got really grossed out whenever he had high fevers. They made him sweat a lot. He’d moan and call out for Salsa.

About a year into our relationship, I realized Nils had a drinking problem, and to make things worse, he liked to “drink and ride.” He’d mount “True Love” or “Andie’s Candies,” or whatever mare he happened to be training at the time, and he’d ride her wasted. Once, he hit a mini-cooper while he was high on Jack & Cokes. The mini-cooper’s front end caved in, and Nils was tossed several feet into the air. When he landed, he somehow lacerated his liver, so we had to deal with that for weeks and weeks. The doctors said he couldn’t take laxatives or caffeine pills because of his liver damage. Nils asked me if I’d offer to give him half my liver, and I thought about it because I was a weak woman, but thank God we weren’t a match. Instead, I asked my mother to do it, and she agreed.

Anyhow, after Nils’ transplant, he needed to be more careful with his body, but he wasn’t. He was determined to win a big race, so he became more obsessed with training. He drank about 10 Redbulls a day and sometimes I’d watch in disgust as he mixed ice cubes, coffee grounds, and redbull in the blender to make “Body Cleansing Smoothies.” I was disgusted. He clogged my toilet at least twice a month.

The final straw was about 3 weeks ago. It was a Sunday, the day of Nils’ gorgings. Since the tracks were closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, Nils knew he could eat whatever he wanted on Sunday nights. I was working late that night, and when I got home, I called out for my small dog, Jamal. He was part Chiwawa, part Weiner Dog. As I walked in the front door, I saw Nils spreading horse radish all over Jamal’s little body. He was about to bite into him when I yelled out for him to stop. When he turned to face me, he had a glazed look in his eyes. He began to cry as he told me he was certain Jamal was a giant, living corndog.

I told Nils to put Jamal down, and after he did, he began to mutter Salsa Baby’s name softly. I ignored his mutterings and I picked him up. He moaned about the intensity of his pancreatitis, but when I started tickling him, he giggled until he fell asleep. We snuggled on the couch together, peacefully, and I thought we’d come to a real understanding about love and respect in our relationship, but instead the worst happened. I awoke around 3 AM to the sounds of sweet, hushed lovemaking. Nils was nowhere to be found, but when I stepped into the garage, I was horrified. Nils was pleasuring himself with a horsey stick and calling out for Salsa Baby to be “daddy’s winner.” I was shocked. That horsey stick was supposed to be for my nephew’s third birthday.

When Nils saw me, he threw himself on top of the horsey stick seemingly to protect it. I demanded to know what was going on. Clearly he was a sick man, but I wanted answers. After his sobbing fit was over, he confessed to being in love with Salsa Baby, his newest racing mare. I told him that was not only disgusting, but criminal. Nils said he didn’t care. He wanted to move to a farm-based community where he wouldn’t be judged. I shook my head at him and told him to have his stuff out by the morning. He asked me if he could keep the horsey stick. I said no.