I blame my friend Pat. For years she has been sharing her love of horses and horse racing with me. She talks to me about sires and dams (we even invented a great party game in the 90s on this topic but never pursued it!) She always reminds me to pick my Derby horse (though neither of us ever bets). She recounts tales of past famous races to make analogies and points in conversation, and in general keeps me abreast of "bloodhorse" news.

It is natural then, when I saw Animal Planet was doing a reality show called Jockeys that I would tune in. I've just seen one episode and I am hooked. Check their website and your local listings for times and rebroadcasts.

There are a few too many commercials for my liking, and if you are fastforwarding through a tape of the show be aware that in some commercial breaks they leave with a factoid question and come back with the answer, sometimes little things that are fun to know.