The Mentalist

[ShadowRoll]

I watched last night's episode of "The Mentalist" which was touted on some horse racing boards because the plot revolved around a racetrack. Every racetrack character was portrayed in a sleezy manner.

The murder victim was a jockey with a physically violent temper. The big-time trainer employed threatening and coercive business practices. The groom, who was an agent of the big-time trainer, delivered threats to people at the track and peddled worthless "inside" information to the suckers. The small-time trainer was a cheat and a murderer. Even the apprentice jockey, the least culpable of the lot, was a reluctant accomplice to the small-time trainer's scam, if not to the murder itself.

I realize that it's only television, and also that they say that any publicity is good publicity, but this kind of a show simply reinforces the negative stereotypes that plague the sport.

Plus, the lead character (the mentalist himself) is a smarmy a-hole.