Love As An Instinct

Irad and Jose Ortiz are thoroughbred horse jockeys. They are also brothers. This past Saturday, they each rode a horse in the famed Kentucky Derby.

It wasn't their first rodeo, as they say. Combined, they had previously ridden in the Derby 19 times. And combined, they had lost every time.

On Saturday, it looked like older brother Irad had the best chance at ending their drought. He was riding Renegade, one of the betting favorites.

Jose was on the long shot Golden Tempo.

In a storybook finish, the brothers rambled down the stretch - side by side - battling for a first Kentucky Derby win. And on this day, the story would end with the younger brother riding the long shot into the winner's circle.

In his moment of defeat, Irad, the older brother, locked arms with Jose to congratulate him. His instinct was to congratulate and love his brother before he ever processed his tenth consecutive Kentucky Derby defeat.

Love as an instinct....

Not love as a statement. Not love as something we get around to once the moment settles and we’ve had time to process our own disappointment. But love as something that moves faster than ego. Faster than comparison. Faster than the quiet voice inside us that keeps score.

I keep thinking about that moment. Two brothers. One just achieved what they had both chased for years. The other just came up short again.

And yet, there was no visible hesitation. No space where resentment could sneak in. No delay where disappointment needed tending to first. Just arms locked.

It makes me wonder how often love in my own life has been more calculated than instinctive. How often have I needed a moment?

A moment to process. A moment to make sense of how something affects me. A moment to quietly compare outcomes before deciding how fully I can celebrate someone else.

And maybe that’s where the gap lives for so many of us. Not in whether we love. But in how quickly love shows up.

Because instinctive love doesn’t wait for clarity. It doesn’t need the story to be fair. It doesn’t ask whether I got what I wanted before it gives itself away to someone else.

It just moves.

I think about my own relationships - friendships, marriage, family - and how many of them have slowly eroded, not because love disappears, but because love gets delayed. Because I've learned to filter it through hurt, insecurity, and self-protection before offering it.

Too often we start to believe love is something we give when it feels deserved. Or safe. Or reciprocated.

But what if love, at its best, doesn’t operate on any of those conditions. What if love is most powerful when it shows up unfiltered?

Irad didn’t stop being competitive.

He didn’t suddenly not care about winning.

That loss still existed.

But for a moment - perhaps the most important moment - love outran all of it. And maybe that’s the invitation hidden inside a horse race.

Not to eliminate our desire to win. Not to pretend loss doesn’t sting. But to let love be the first thing that moves when the moment comes.

To train our hearts in such a way that when life puts us side by side with someone else’s victory - especially when it comes at the expense of our own - we don’t have to think about what to do.

We just know.

We reach.

We lock arms.

And in doing so, we reveal something deeper than victory.

Love.