On the Brink of a Triple Crown

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About midway through the week, I began searching for articles about today's Preakness Stakes in Baltimore.

I wanted to find out if veteran handicappers thought Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another had a chance of winning today's race — and, consequently, continuing to contend for the Triple Crown.

I found few articles that spoke of him the way articles in the past have lauded the Kentucky Derby winner.

That's understandable. The last time the Kentucky Derby winner went on to win the Preakness was in 2008. In fact, only 10 times since Affirmed won the 1978 Triple Crown had the Kentucky Derby winner gone on to win the Preakness. That is less than one–third of the time.

With that kind of history, horse racing writers had every reason to be hesitant to build up I'll Have Another until today's race was in the books.

Well, it is in the books now, and my guess is that we'll be hearing a lot about I'll Have Another in the next three weeks.

Because he did win today's Preakness — and it was perhaps the most exciting Preakness I have ever seen.

Once again, Bodemeister, the horse that led the Kentucky Derby most of the way, was the leader in the Preakness — again, most of the way.

And, once again, I'll Have Another overtook him at the end — and won the Preakness by a head. Literally.

Last year, three different horses won the Triple Crown races. And, at the time, I wrote that it was not so much a sign of a mediocre thoroughbred field as it was an indication that horse racing was enjoying a period of parity in which every race was competitive.

Those were exciting races, to be sure.

But anyone who is a fan of horse racing is likely to appreciate the fact that, for only the 11th time in the last 34 years, we can anticipate the possibility of a Triple Crown winner when the Belmont is run three weeks from today.

Even casual fans will know — if they don't already — that this year's Belmont will be something rare and extraordinary. It will be an event — and not, as it has been for the last three years, the anticlimactic conclusion to the Triple Crown season.

As I have mentioned here before, I teach journalism and writing to students in the Dallas County community college system, and nearly all the students with whom I have worked in the last couple of years were born at least a decade after the last Triple Crown winner.

If I'll Have Another does win the Belmont — and, with it, the Triple Crown — it will be the kind of thing that comes along once in a generation — if that.

I know many people who were born in 1979 or after — and, as a consequence, have not seen a Triple Crown winner. Some of them have died — and some may die before the Belmont is run — and will, as a consequence, never see a Triple Crown winner.

There is, of course, that one last hurdle for I'll Have Another, and it has wrecked many potential Triple Crown winners. At 1½ miles, it is the longest of the three, a quarter of a mile longer than the Kentucky Derby and more than one–third of a mile longer than the race that was run today.

After two races that emphasized speed, the Belmont prizes endurance. That is why it is known as the "Test of Champions." And it is quite a test.

We will find out if I'll Have Another is a super horse, one that is fast but can also handle long distances. Most horses are either one or the other. Triple Crown winners tend to be exceptions to the rule.

It should make for an entertaining afternoon three weeks from today.

Will the Cycle Be Broken?

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Affirmed was the last horse to win thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown in 1978.

Thirty–three Triple Crown opportunities have come and gone since then, but no horse has won all three races. It's the longest drought since Sir Barton won the first Triple Crown in 1919, and many people think it is the kind of thing that cannot be done again.

Most decades have had no Triple Crown winners at all. Three — the 1930s, 1940s and 1970s — produced multiple winners, and their names read like the roster of a horse racing's Who's Who or the Top 10 of Blood–Horse magazine's 100 greatest thoroughbreds of the 20th century.

Anyway, history — not to mention common sense — suggests that, if no horse wins a Triple Crown by the middle of a decade, that decade isn't likely to have a Triple Crown winner.

This decade is still relatively young. We can go a couple more years without a Triple Crown winner before — historically speaking — it will be seen as too late.

But we've already waited more than 30 years. Horse racing fans are understandably anxious.

Admittedly, it's a little premature to be asking this question, but what are the chances we'll be anticipating a Triple Crown winner in three weeks when the horses are about to run in the Belmont, the third and last jewel?

For that to happen, I'll Have Another must win in Baltimore.

David Ginsburg of the Associated Press seems to think the chances are pretty good that Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another will prevail — even though he is the Morning Line's second choice behind Bodemeister, the horse he overcame to win the Run for the Roses.

Chris Korman of the Baltimore Sun writes that I'll Have Another has been running well in his pre–Preakness training sessions.

Bodemeister does have his supporters, though, like Andrew Beyer of the Washington Post.

Beyer writes that "[w]hen serious bettors evaluate what has happened in a race, they don't necessarily focus on who won and who lost. They understand that outcomes are determined not only by horses' talent but by race dynamics — pace, traffic trouble, ground loss, all the things that constitute a horse's 'trip.' They try to consider all of these factors in order to judge after the fact who ran best because that conclusion may be the key to betting a future race."

Bodemeister had the "toughest trip" of any of the horses in the Kentucky Derby, Beyer writes, because he was forced to run a faster pace from the start than he would have preferred. Yet he still almost won at Churchill Downs.

"Run the Kentucky Derby 100 times in an alternate universe and he'll capture a plurality of them."

At Pimlico on Saturday, Beyer writes, "there is only one reason to question Bodemeister, and it has nothing to do with his talent. The colt has crammed his whole five–race career into the span of four months, and the exertions may have taken a toll on him."

Jay Privman of the Daily Racing Form writes that winning the Derby exposed the many layers of Doug O'Neill, the trainer of I'll Have Another.

"His has been a complicated, multi–dimensional career, alternately praised for winning major races and multiple titles, yet questioned by racing authorities for violations O'Neill disputes," Privman writes.

I suspect the controversies will only intensify if O'Neill's horse wins on Saturday.

Deja Vu All Over Again?

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I had kind of a strange sensation when I watched I'll Have Another win the Kentucky Derby yesterday.

It was something of a flashback to the late spring/early summer of 1973, when Secretariat won the Triple Crown.

Secretariat is probably best remembered for his dominant performance in the third jewel of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, in which he practically strolled to a 31–length victory.

But most of the folks who were old enough at the time to absorb what it was that they were seeing — and to appreciate that they were witnessing something rare and remarkable, the first Triple Crown winner in a quarter of a century — will tell you that Secretariat came from behind to win the first two races.

That was his M.O. — until that memorable afternoon in June.

While it is entirely possible that I am overlooking something obvious, I don't think I have seen anything quite like it since — at least until yesterday's Derby.

Thirty–nine years ago, it seems to me that Secretariat had to come from dead last — or close to it — to barely win the first two races of the Triple Crown. Clearly, he was a speed horse, like all the other sons of Bold Ruler, but there were doubts that he had the endurance for a truly long race like the Belmont.

Such doubts were erased in the Belmont — and, as impressive as that victory was, there were lingering questions that went unanswered until 16 years later when, after Secretariat's death, a team of veterinarians examined his vital organs and discovered that his heart was twice the size of a normal horse's.

It's still early in this year's Triple Crown campaign. The Preakness is coming up on May 19, followed by the Belmont on June 9, and no horse has won a Triple Crown in nearly 35 years — so I'll Have Another's win yesterday may have no significance in the long run.

But his Derby run reminded me of those Secretariat days.

I honestly don't know anything about I'll Have Another's lineage. Maybe, like Secretariat, he is a descendant of not only a speed horse like Bold Ruler but also a power horse like the 18th–century British horse Eclipse (who was said to have passed along an x factor trait through his daughters that produced such oversized hearts).

Maybe not. I suppose we'll know more in a couple of weeks — or five weeks, if I'll Have Another wins the Preakness.

And he didn't have to come from the back of the pack yesterday — just the middle of it.

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But I'll be damned if there aren't real similarities between yesterday's race and the one that started Secretariat on his Triple Crown–winning run 39 years ago.

In 1973, Secretariat overtook his primary nemesis, Sham. Will Bodemeister — one of yesterday's pre–race favorites and the leader until he was overtaken in the stretch — turn out to be I'll Have Another's arch rival in 2012?

Time will tell.