Secretariat is a name that has been known by hundreds of millions of people for more than 40 years — but most probably never heard of Penny Chenery until the Walt Disney Co. made a movie about Secretariat.
If you didn't grow up in the South, you may not know that is about the highest compliment one can pay. To be a tough old bird suggests that you have lived a long life and fielded everything life threw at you. Penny Chenery was a pioneer, and pioneers always have to be tough old birds.
They rarely win popularity contests.
In Penny Chenery's case she took over her father's once–successful horse breeding business when he became disabled and, applying what she had learned in business school, revived it and pursued her father's dream of winning the Kentucky Derby.
She had her father's love of horses, but she knew that horse breeding was not the kind of business she had studied in school. She encountered plenty of resistance along the way, but she achieved her father's goal with Riva Ridge in 1972.
In fact, with Secretariat, she went beyond her father's dream. She won all three of the Triple Crown races the following year, and Secretariat became the first Triple Crown winner in a quarter of a century.
Even now when I watch the footage of Secretariat's astonishing victory in the third and final jewel of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, I feel that same sense of awe and excitement that I felt on that Saturday afternoon in June of 1973.
A decade after that accomplishment, Chenery became one of the first three women to be admitted as members of The Jockey Club, which is the breed registry for thoroughbred horses in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. A few years earlier she became a member of the Executive Committee of the American Horse Council, the horse industry trade association.
When the Disney movie was in the theaters seven years ago, some complained that it was more about Penny Chenery than it was about Secretariat, and there is some truth in that.
But the greater truth is that no movie could fully tell the story of Penny Chenery's remarkable life.
Going to the races at Oaklawn in Hot Springs was one of my favorite off–day activities when I worked on the sports desk at the Arkansas Gazette. I was off Mondays and Tuesdays in those days; while there was much about that schedule that I disliked the rest of the time, I really preferred it during racing season. If the weather was nice, a Monday or a Tuesday at Oaklawn Park was impossible to beat. The crowds were small so I didn't have to stand in line to do anything like place a bet, buy a beer, get a sandwich or use the restroom. The horses were the dregs of their stables, but that just made the races more interesting.
I like to watch the Triple Crown races, too, but I have always watched them on TV. I have never been to any of the Triple Crown races, but it is always fun for me simply to watch the TV coverage. The fact that I haven't seen one in person hasn't bothered me.
I don't have a bucket list — but if I did, going to Churchill Downs on Derby Day would be on it. I wouldn't even have to go inside and watch the race. I'd rather watch the people. That was probably my favorite thing to do at Oaklawn, and, judging from what I typically see in the pre–race TV coverage on Derby Day, the people at Churchill Downs are always 10 times — nay, 100 times — more interesting than the folks at Oaklawn ever were.
Sometimes the races are pretty good, too.
Like the one that was run yesterday.
It was an exciting race, ultimately won by the 3–to–1 favorite, an undefeated horse named Nyquist. If Nyquist wins the Triple Crown, he will be the second Triple Crown winner to have an unblemished record. The first was Seattle Slew.
Conventional wisdom says Nyquist probably will win the second jewel of the Triple Crown, the Preakness, which will be run a week from this Saturday (May 21). The distances of the Derby and the Preakness are the same, and the races tend to attract the same fields. There are variables, of course. Sometimes jockeys change, sometimes horses drop out and new ones are inserted, and sometimes the conditions are different (one race may be on a fast track, the other may be on a sloppy track).
But generally speaking the Derby winner is the favorite and usually prevails.
If that holds true this time, then it will be the Belmont, which will be held on June 11, that will make or break Nyquist. It is often called the "Test of Champions" because it is considerably longer than the first two Triple Crown races. Indeed, it is probably the longest race any of the horses that compete in it will ever run.
Thus, while the first two races of the Triple Crown favor speed horses, the final race favors endurance horses. Most horses fall in one category or the other. It is rare to find a combination of speed and endurance within the same horse — but those horses that do combine them usually win the Triple Crown.
With yesterday's victory, Nyquist has established himself as a speed horse on a big–time stage. I expect him to duplicate his achievement in Maryland in two weeks.
Then the question will be whether he is one of those rare horses that combine speed and endurance. The answer will come on the track at the Belmont.
I remember the last Triple Crown winner — vaguely. I had just graduated from high school — and broken up with my girlfriend. I was going to enroll in college in the fall. I didn't really pay close attention to horse racing at that time in my life. After all, a Triple Crown? What was so special about that? It was the third one in six years.
In hindsight, the duels between eventual Triple Crown winner Affirmed and his rival Alydar were quite special. In addition to producing the most recent Triple Crown winner (in 1978), they were just darn good horse races.
I must admit that I have been pretty busy this year. I have managed to watch the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness as usual, but that has really been the extent of it this year.
Still, I learned a few things. For one, I know — as everyone knows about horses that win the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness — that American Pharoah is a speed horse. But that means nothing going into tomorrow's race. The first two races of the Triple Crown emphasize speed; the Belmont, which will be run tomorrow, is the longest race any horse will ever run, and it emphasizes endurance. It is really more of a jockey's race. The jockey must make critical decisions, such as when to make your move and dig deep for any reserves of energy. You don't really see signs of that in the Derby or the Preakness. They're over in the blink of an eye. But the Belmont is a longer race. The jockey's strategic skills combine with the horse's endurance.
I didn't realize until three weeks ago how good American Pharoah could be on a sloppy track. His victory in the Preakness was dominant in soggy conditions, which might tell us a lot if rain was in the forecast. But there's only a slight chance of rain in Elmont, N.Y., tomorrow. Should be a pleasant day, actually, with a northerly breeze and a temperature in the mid–70s.
But the track should be dry, as it was at the Kentucky Derby five weeks ago. American Pharoah's victory wasn't as dominant in that one.
That was, by far, the more dramatic race, with American Pharoah bunched with two other horses as they sprinted to the finish line. They were so tightly bunched, in fact, that I thought I was about to see my first–ever photo finish involving three horses. But American Pharoah pulled away and was the clear winner.
I've become a bit jaded about the Triple Crown in recent years. We've been disappointed a little more than one–third of the time when the Derby/Preakness winner either did not win or did not enter the Belmont; the rest of the time, there was no chance that the winner of the Belmont would win the Triple Crown because two different horses had won the Derby and the Preakness — and that meant low TV ratings and low attendance.
Last year, with California Chrome making what turned out to be an unsuccessful bid for the Triple Crown, more than 100,000 people came to the track, and things got out of hand. This year, organizers say they're putting a cap on attendance at 90,000. We'll see how that works out.
So will American Pharoah end the drought? He's the clear favorite going into the race, but I have been skeptical in recent years. I have written about that before, and I feel much the same way this time. I doubt that it will happen.
I don't have any overwhelming reason for that. I don't have a horse in mind that I think will win the race, although there are a couple of names I have been hearing mentioned frequently — Keen Ice and Frosted. Keep an eye on those horses. Even though the 1½–mile Belmont emphasizes endurance, I think it is possible that either of those horses could make a move from the start that forces American Pharoah into a speed race. Unless he really turns out to be one of those rare perfect blends of speed and endurance, he will run out of gas before he reaches the finish line.
Here's a look at the last time a horse won the Triple Crown — Affirmed's triumph in the Belmont Stakes in June of 1978.
Once again, horse racing enthusiasts were disappointed by the Belmont.
It's frustrating, this 36–year drought — the longest dry spell ever since the last Triple Crown winner. If you're 40 years old, you weren't even in grade school yet when Affirmed claimed the last Triple Crown — you probably had not even been born when Secretariat ended a then–record 25–year drought in the Triple Crown.
It's so frustrating that Steve Coburn, owner of California Chrome, the latest Triple Crown hopeful to falter in the Belmont, called the owner and trainer of the winner (Tonalist) "cowards" for not running their horse in all three Triple Crown races, as he had done.
That's been an issue with the Triple Crown for a long time. To win the Triple Crown, a horse must win three races in three different states within five weeks' time. The winner of the Kentucky Derby is not compelled to run in the Preakness two weeks later. And, if a horse wins both of those races, he is not compelled to run in the Belmont, either.
But the lure of the Triple Crown almost always brings 'em.
I wouldn't call myself an expert on horse racing, but there are a few things I know, mostly from trying to fall back on my training as a journalist and listening to what others (most of whom are experts) have to say — and most trainers say they prefer to give a horse five weeks (at least) between races. Usually, they will lean more toward six or seven weeks.
Three races in five weeks is an unbelievably grueling pace in horse racing. If that is still hard for you to understand, look at it this way.
We live in an age of sports specialization. In my father's day, there were lots of guys who played both offense and defense in football; I don't know if I can recall such a two–way player in my lifetime. Maybe there has been one, possibly two, probably born more of necessity than of skill.
When I was a boy, it wasn't unusual for pitchers to go the distance in baseball. There were a couple of relievers on most staffs in case the starter really got into trouble. Now, teams have staffs of relievers who have been trained to come in and give an inning or two before giving the ball to the closer. If a starter goes longer than six innings, he's probably pitching a no–hitter — and most likely will be yanked the minute a player from the other team gets on base.
Asking a horse to run in — and win — three races in 35 days is like asking a pitcher to throw three complete games in the space of a week.
That's why winning a Triple Crown is such an impressive accomplishment. Well, it is part of the reason.
The other part is what we saw on Saturday.
The Belmont is longer than either the Kentucky Derby (1¼ miles) or the Preakness (1 3/16 miles). The first two races are much shorter than the Belmont (1½ miles), which is justifiably called the "Test of the Champion." To win the first two races, a horse must possess speed. To win the Belmont, a horse must possess endurance.
Few horses possess both. It takes a special horse to win a Triple Crown. Only 11 horses have done it since 1875, the first year that all three races were run.
Secretariat was the greatest horse I ever saw, but there were those who questioned whether he could win a long race like the Belmont. His answer was a 31–length victory. Now that is a horse that combines speed and endurance.
Some people say a Triple Crown can't be won again. I say it can. I just can't say when.
And he was right — to an extent. It isn't fair that a rested horse like Tonalist (or Commissioner, the second–place finisher) can run against a horse that has run in the Derby and the Preakness — but it happens nearly every year.
For that matter, Coburn didn't have to enter California Chrome in the Preakness and the Belmont, but he did. That was his choice.
That was his gamble — and it didn't pay off.
If you've ever placed a bet at a race track that didn't pay off, you might know how he felt — except that he didn't lose a mere $2 wager. He lost what may be his only chance to win a Triple Crown.
I understand that he felt it was unfair that Tonalist was able to get the rest Coburn's trainer believes is essential for a horse to give his best performance — while California Chrome was running not one but two races.
But that is the special challenge of the Triple Crown, isn't it? Most horses can't do it.
California Chrome apparently is still scheduled to run for a Triple Crown tomorrow — unlike the last horse to win the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, I'll Have Another, yanked at the last minute, to the frustration of horse racing fans.
I'll admit it. I would like to see a Triple Crown winner — not the way some folks do, the ones who say they want to see one more Triple Crown winner before they die, but because I think it would be good for horse racing. And I like horse racing.
Forty years ago, the great Secretariat ended a 25–year Triple Crown drought. He breathed new life into his sport, and there were two more Triple Crown winners (and nearly a third) before the decade ended. The drought is much longer this time, and California Chrome is the 13th horse to win the first two jewels of the Triple Crown since Affirmed won the last Triple Crown in 1978.
It has been noted often that attendance at America's tracks has been declining for years — and suggested that even a Triple Crown winner won't be enough to bring those patrons back. The longer fans stay away, the harder it is to bring them back. It isn't impossible, as baseball demonstrated after a strike wiped out the 1994 World Series, but it is difficult to achieve.
Maybe too much time has passed. That happens in sports — and in life. There are windows of opportunity; when they slam shut, it is awfully difficult to open them again. Baseball was fortunate to have two charismatic players, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, dueling to set a single–season home run record in 1998. Their battle brought fans back to the ballparks, but attendance had been down in the years since the strike.
I have often wondered if baseball had reached a critical point when the McGwire–Sosa home run race captured the public's imagination. If the McGwire–Sosa duel had not materialized, would baseball have remained America's pastime?
Team sports are different from individual sports, though, and a horse is, after all, an animal, not a person who may be able to use his charisma to get back in the public's good graces. Animals have no real charisma — at least none of which they are aware, just the charisma that is generated by a picture or video.
I don't know if winning a Triple Crown can reverse horse racing's fortunes. I get the feeling, though, that, with California Chrome, I have seen this before, and I really expect to see the same kind of outcome tomorrow as we have seen nearly a dozen times since 1978.
This is how it generally seems to play out. A horse wins the Kentucky Derby (OK, that happens every year; nothing special about that, right?), but there are doubts about the horse that persist until he wins the Preakness two weeks later. Most of the time, the Preakness win is convincing enough that the questions about the horse disappear, and momentum for the two–time winner starts to build.
The horse looks great in training and is greeted with lots of hesitant–yet–hopeful hype when he arrives in New York. Now, that kind of attention has been known to turn many an athlete's head. But an animal doesn't have human emotions and can't feel the pressure of high expectations. As time passes, the conventional wisdom becomes the horse is a lock to win. Confidence begets overconfidence; overconfidence begets a belief that it will be different this time.
But it never is.
There are all kinds of ways for this to happen. I thought I had seen them all — until I'll Have Another was pulled out the day before the Belmont in 2012. When that happened, I figured that I hadn't seen them all.
It could be a repeat of something we've seen before. Smarty Jones faded in the stretch in 2004. War Emblem broke badly in 2002 and never recovered. In 1998, Real Quiet looked like he would win it, then lost at the wire. Big Brown, so dominating in the first two races in 2008, was eased out of the money in the third.
Or it might be something new — or, at least, something we have not seen in a long time.
So, in spite of all the enthusiasm about California Chrome, put me down as skeptical.
Perhaps I am wrong. Frankly, I hope I am. It would be nice to see a Triple Crown winner. And I am sincere when I say it would be good for horse racing. I do believe that.
Well, we'll find out in 24 hours.
By the way, if you're looking for something to kill some time between now and post time, USA Today reprinted a Belmont Stakes horse name generator that apparently originated in the Reno Gazette–Journal.
Give it whirl. My Belmont Stakes horse's name was Reno Prince.
When I worked on a sports copy desk in Little Rock, I became friends with the sportswriter who covered horse racing for us.
I learned a lot from him. I remember most of the things he told me, and I will never forget what may have been the most important thing he told me: There is no such thing as a sure thing. That's why they call it gambling.
In a week and a half, California Chrome will become the 12th horse to enter the Belmont Stakes with a chance to win the Triple Crown since Affirmed became the most recent Triple Crown winner in 1978. (Well, I presume he will run in the Belmont. He might not have if he hadn't been permitted to wear the nasal strip that helped him breathe easier in the first two races — and he still might not compete. I guess we won't know for sure until the Belmont is run on June 7.)
Obviously, we've been here before — and, just as obviously, success in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness does not mean success in the Belmont Stakes.
It's a point every Triple Crown winner must reach en route to achieving the goal, of course, and 11 horses have won all three races for 3–year–old thoroughbreds that comprise it.
That's 11 Triple Crown winners in 95 years — since Sir Barton won the first Triple Crown back in 1919. But we's have had that many horses win the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and fail to win the Belmont since Affirmed's Triple Crown in 1978 — starting with Spectacular Bid in 1979.
There had never been three consecutive Triple Crown winners when Spectacular Bid ran in the Belmont, but, if Spectacular Bid had won that race, it would have made three straight Triple Crown winners.
On the morning of the 1979 Belmont, it was discovered that Spectacular Bid had stepped on a safety pin, and it was lodged in his hoof. He didn't appear to be lame, though, so he was allowed to run the race, and he appeared to be doing well, holding the lead at the midway point. However, he began to falter and finished third.
Since then, 10 other horses have won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness but failed to win the Belmont — and it might have been 11, but we'll never know. I'll Have Another won the first two races in 2012 but did not run in the Belmont.
Winning the first two races and losing the third wasn't a new thing in 1979. In the years before Spectacular Bid's Triple Crown attempt, eight other horses won the first two races but came up short in the third and last one. But it has been happening with greater frequency in the last 35 years.
Why is that? Well, I could be wrong, but I think it is because of the age of specialization that permeates sports these days.
Take baseball, for example. When I was growing up, it wasn't uncommon for a pitcher to throw a complete game. In fact, it was routinely expected that starting pitchers would go the distance — and relievers were called upon only when things got out of hand.
Now, baseball teams carry staffs of relief specialists who are called on (ideally) when the starter has gone six or seven innings, long enough to receive credit for the win, starting with the middle reliever and (again, ideally) proceeding to the closer.
I don't breed horses, but I gather — from my own observations and comments from those whose evaluations on such things I trust — that horses are bred for either speed or endurance, not both. To a degree, I suppose it has always been that way; I have always heard certain horses referred to as speed horses and other horses referred to as endurance horses.
I've heard some people suggest that, based on the times of the first two races, California Chrome is an endurance horse. I'm not sure about that. These assessments are made on the basis of times that differ by fifths of seconds. Sports are often described as being games of inches, though, so judging distances by fifths of seconds may not be all that different. I'm just not entirely sure it is the way to differentiate between a speed horse and an endurance horse.
Essentially, I suppose, a horse that can win all three races of the Triple Crown is both.
They call the Belmont the "test of the champion," and it really is. It is the longest of the three races by at least a quarter of a mile, thus emphasizing endurance over speed. If a horse can win the Triple Crown, he really has proven himself as an all–around champion.
In an interesting piece in The Atlantic last week, Henry Fetter wrote that even a Triple Crown winner won't be enough to save horse racing.
"[H]oping that a Triple Crown for California Chrome can jump–start a turnaround in the fortunes of the erstwhile sport of kings is almost certainly a hope too far," Fetter wrote.
Does the name of Calvin Borel sound familiar to you?
He's a jockey from Louisiana, and, even if you only pay attention to horse racing in the five weeks of the Triple Crown, Borel's name should sound familiar to you. He's a Hall of Famer, a three–time winner of the Kentucky Derby; in 2009, he won the Preakness as well and became the first jockey to win the first two races of the Triple Crown on different horses.
In fact, when he won the Preakness (exactly five years ago this Friday), Borel rode a filly, Rachel Alexandra. It wasn't the first time that a filly won the Preakness, but it was the first time in 85 years.
It is important to know that because Borel apparently will be trying to duplicate horse racing history in this Saturday's running of the Preakness. It was reported yesterday that Borel will be riding another filly, Ria Antonia.
The immediate plans for the filly, who recently changed owners, were uncertain initially, but Jennie Rees of USA Today reports that "[a]n impressive workout Sunday under Calvin Borel seemed to seal the deal."
Meanwhile, Kentucky Derby winner and presumptive Preakness favorite California Chrome arrived in Baltimore Monday. He seemed to enjoy the attention he received, writes Childs Walker in the Baltimore Sun.
He's getting plenty of attention from other owners who would like to puncture the Triple Crown balloon. As I observed following the Kentucky Derby, the comparatively leisurely pace of the Kentucky Derby might encourage the owners of speed horses to challenge California Chrome in Baltimore.
Is that what is happening? Is Ria Antonia a speed horse who might be capable of challenging California Chrome?
Her new trainer isn't saying, only that he see the Preakness as being California Chrome vs. the field. If he is able to run the race his way, he will win. But if he is thrown off by something or someone, all bets are off.
Speaking of bets, according to the odds posted yesterday, the pending odds against Ria Antonia are 32–1. If the odds are unchanged Saturday afternoon, and Borel rides Ria Antonia to victory, it will be a big story — but it won't be the biggest story in Borel's career. Two weeks before he rode Rachel Alexandra to victory in the Preakness, he rode Mine That Bird, a 50–to–1 shot, to a huge upset win in the Kentucky Derby.
Borel rode Ride On Curlin in this year's Kentucky Derby on May 3, finishing seventh. Ride On Curlin will be in the Preakness field this Saturday, but Joel Rosario, who rode General A Rod to an 11th–place finish at Churchill Downs, will replace Borel.
(General A Rod has been confirmed for the race, too. Javier Castellano, who rode the winner in the 2006 Preakness, will be on board.)
I watched the race, as I always do. I enjoyed the spectacle of the thing. I reminded myself that someday I would really like to go to Churchill Downs to watch the Kentucky Derby in person.
It isn't a Bucket List kind of thing. I know that you've probably got to have connections with people who have connections to people who have connections to the Derby merely to be able to watch from the grandstand. During my days as a sports copy editor, I knew a handicapper rather well, and he might have been such a connection for me then. But that was many years ago, and my friend is now deceased. The odds against my ever going to the Kentucky Derby must be incredible.
So it will remain the sort of thing I would like to do, but it isn't the sort of thing I absolutely positively must do, before I die. And that's OK.
Anyway, as I say, I enjoyed the spectacle of the race. It's always exciting for me to watch those horses running around that track, but each year it seems I care less about who wins — and more about whether he can win the other two races in the Triple Crown, the Preakness in two weeks and the Belmont in early June.
There are those who follow horse racing who will tell you that a Triple Crown can not be won — but they have been saying that for decades, whenever there is a gap between Triple Crown winners. Thirty–six years and counting is the longest such drought in Triple Crown history, which encourages the naysayers all the more.
The Kentucky Derby is the clean slate for the Triple Crown. Once it is over, there is only one horse that can win the Triple Crown that year. But before the Run for the Roses, the number of horses that could win the Triple Crown is however many horses are running at Churchill Downs.
The Preakness is always important in the quest for the Triple Crown, but it can be misleading. Since Affirmed won the Triple Crown, a dozen horses have won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but none won the Belmont.
(In fact, it has been 10 years since a horse won the Derby and the Preakness and even finished the Belmont. Big Brown didn't finish in 2008, and I'll Have Another was scratched in 2012.)
Why is that so? Well, the Derby and the Preakness are shorter races. They're practically the same distance, and they favor speed. The Belmont is considerably longer, and it favors endurance.
Few horses combine both. The legendary Secretariat did, coming from behind to win the first two jewels but seizing control of the Belmont and winning it by 30 lengths. The video tape of that race is the most amazing thing you will ever see at a race track.
Judging from the somewhat pedestrian pace of yesterday's Kentucky Derby, which was run on a warm, sunny day and a dry track, this year's field may lean toward endurance. That could encourage owners of speed horses to challenge California Chrome at Pimlico on May 17, and he may wind up facing horses he hasn't seen before.
If you are mostly unfamiliar with horse racing and don't really follow it until this five–week period in May and June, you probably don't think of two weeks as being short rest, but for nearly all horsemen, it is probably the equivalent of sending your ace pitcher back out to the mound a couple of days after his last start.
It simply isn't done.
Well, except during the run for the Triple Crown — three races, three states, five–week period. That's like an Iron Man Triathlon for horses.
"I'm not real comfortable with running him back in two weeks, but I know that's what we're bound to do," California Chrome's trainer told Reuters. "I'm more the kind of guy who likes to wait seven or eight weeks between races. These horses run hard and they need time to recover."
No records were set in yesterday's race. Don't expect any two weeks from now.
The 2014 edition of the Kentucky Derby will be run in a few hours, and there are some interesting story lines to follow. Of course, part of that is due to the pressure on sportswriters to produce compelling copy in the days before the big race (when the only newsworthy developments are likely to be bad).
Somewhere out there someone must have written a piece that lays out all the reasons why the longest longshot on the board (and, currently, that is 48–to–1 pick Vinceremos) is the smart pick.
That doesn't mean the stories aren't good — but take it from an ex–sports copy editor. Take each with as many grains of salt as you need.
Joe Drape of the New York Times reports that the Kentucky Derby is an opportunity for two sons to do something their fathers weren't able to do.
Allen Jerkens is a Hall of Fame trainer. He trained horses that beat Secretariat and Kelso (who did not win the Triple Crown because his 3–year–old season began after the Triple Crown had been decided) — but his horses never won the Kentucky Derby. His son Jimmy is the trainer of Wicked Strong, a 7–to–1 shot as of 2 p.m. Central time today — second only to prerace favorite California Chrome (2–1 after opening at 5–to–2).
Similarly, Don Little Jr., the owner of Wicked Strong, comes from old thoroughbred racing stock. In the 1980s, his father (now deceased) founded Centennial Farms, which has produced some pretty good horses (including a Belmont Stakes winner), but none of them has ever won the Run for the Roses.
Today may be their best chance, but Danza, a 9–to–1 shot after opening at 10–1, could have something to say about it. Named for actor Tony Danza (who once played a part–time boxer on TV's Taxi), the Arkansas Derby winner seems to be a legitimate contender. His jockey, Joe Bravo, is the latest branch in a family tree full of jockeys and has won quite a few major races, but he has yet to win a Kentucky Derby.
(Jay Privman of the Daily Racing Form writes that California Chrome is a working–class–hero in the sport of kings. He definitely has been working more than the other horses. He has started more races than any of his rivals.)
Cindy Boren claims in the Washington Post to provide everything you need to know about betting on the race — and she does ... except for how to pick the winner.
That, my friends, is why they call it gambling.
At the moment, 19 horses are in the race. Twenty–one were entered originally, but two have been scratched. The Derby field is always like that; the field is less crowded for the other two races in the Triple Crown. But at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May, every contender and pretender is on the track.
(Sometimes, it seems to me, a bet in the Kentucky Derby would be just as likely to produce a winner if the pick was made by throwing a dart at a dartboard in which the horses' names replaced numbers.)
Handicapper Liam Durbin writes in the Chicago Tribune that he can save you all the trouble of wading through each horse's track record.
California Chrome is probably the logical choice, he writes, but the best value might be — and here we introduce a fourth horse to watch — Dance With Fate.
Dance With Fate is something of a sleeper, currently 14–1 after opening at 20–1. Corey Nakatani will be riding Dance With Fate, and he, too, is looking for his first Kentucky Derby victory.
Teresa Genaro of Forbes has tips for gamblers as well.
And she actually does pick the winner — Ride On Curlin, a 15–to–1 pick.
USA Today reports that the experts' picks are all over the place.
So who will win? You can see the race for yourself on NBC in less than two hours — at 5:32 p.m. (Central).
It was 65 years ago today that Citation won the Belmont Stakes and became American horse racing's eighth Triple Crown winner.
It would be 25 years before a horse won the Triple Crown again.
Only Man O' War and Secretariat rank ahead of Citation on Blood–Horse magazine's list of the top 100 racehorses of the 20th century — and deservedly so. He was the first horse to win $1 million.
Considering the affect that inflation tends to have on monetary amounts, there may be other horses who won the equivalent of $1 million in their day, but Citation actually did win $1 million. In fact, his career earnings were close to $1.1 million.
And, of course, he won the Triple Crown, which is something Man O' War never did — but that is probably because his owner didn't like racing in Kentucky so he didn't enter Man O' War in the Kentucky Derby. Man O' War did win the other two jewels of the Triple Crown, but it wasn't known as the Triple Crown in those days so I doubt it mattered to most people.
But when Citation came along about 30 years later, it did matter.
It's been my experience that the best, most successful thoroughbreds have their preferred jockeys who always ride them in the major races. I don't know why a horse has such a preference; it just seems that way. Affirmed, the 1978 Triple Crown winner, had young Steve Cauthen aboard. The year before, Jean Cruguet rode Seattle Slew to the Triple Crown. Secretariat had Ron Turcotte. And so on.
Citation won with more than one jockey. He didn't really seem to have a preference. He was quite successful with a jockey named Albert Snider, who rode him to his U.S. championship as a 2–year–old, but Snider drowned before the Triple Crown races were held in 1948. For awhile, Steve Brooks rode Citation, then Hall of Famer Eddie Arcaro rode him to the Triple Crown.
Arcaro, by the way, is the only jockey to win two Triple Crowns. He did it the first time a decade earlier aboard Lawrin (who, it is worth mentioning, did not make Blood–Horse's list). It was obvious to Citation's owner that Arcaro knew what he was doing.
Still, Citation was able to win no matter who was riding him. Granted, he did lose his first start with Arcaro aboard — but he didn't lose again for a couple of years. Arcaro said Citation was the best horse he ever rode.
A lot of horse people said — and many still say — Citation was the best of all time — better even than Secretariat or Man O' War. He was before my time so I'm not really qualified to make that assessment, but I can say that, based on the film footage I have seen, he was clearly one of the best — if not the best.
Citation probably would have won the Kentucky Derby (which he did by 3½ lengths) no matter who was riding him, but Arcaro still made the generous gesture of giving Snider's widow half the Derby purse. Arcaro didn't have to do that, but Snider did most of the work in preparing Citation for his 3–year–old season and the Triple Crown. There was no legal obligation, but Arcaro clearly felt that there was a moral one.
Two weeks later, Citation won the Preakness by 5½ lengths — and three weeks later, on this day in 1948, he became the eighth horse to win the Triple Crown.
Thirty–five years ago today, thoroughbred racing witnessed the crowning of its most recent Triple Crown winner.
At the time, it seemed embarrassingly routine. Between 1973 and 1978, there were three Triple Crown winners. There have been none since.
Some folks think 1978 will be the last time a horse ever wins the Triple Crown. Maybe it will be. I hope not. I'd like to see another Triple Crown winner in my lifetime.
When this year's edition of the Belmont was run a couple of days ago, I already knew there would be no Triple Crown winner in 2013. But no one knew if there would be a Triple Crown winner when this day dawned in 1978. Everyone knew it was possible, but everyone also knew that the winner of the first two races, Affirmed, would have to hold off his top challenger in those races, Alydar.
And that was something Affirmed had barely been able to do in the two speed races of the Triple Crown. The question on this day was whether he could do it in the distance race, the Belmont Stakes.
The Affirmed–Alydar rivalry actually went back farther than the 1978 Triple Crown. They were old foes. The previous year, as 2–year–olds, they faced each other frequently. They were probably horse racing's answer to Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier or Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, two other prominent rivalries of the '70s.
Affirmed surged to an early lead and clung to the lead throughout the race, but along the backstretch, Alydar pulled nearly even, and the two shared the lead for the rest of the Belmont. For awhile as the horses ran down the stretch, Alydar had the lead; briefly, it appeared there would be no Triple Crown winner in 1978.
As befits a great rivalry, though, the battle of the Belmont wasn't decided until the very end, as legendary race announcer Chic Anderson said. Anderson (who made a memorable call when Secretariat won the Belmont by an incredible 30 lengths five years before) observed that Affirmed and Alydar were running neck and neck down the stretch. "We'll test these two to the wire!" he exclaimed.
And so they did. Affirmed barely won the race — and the Triple Crown. Riding Affirmed to that Triple Crown was 18–year–old Steve Cauthen, the youngest jockey ever to sweep the Triple Crown races.
As no horse has won the Triple Crown since that day, it follows that Cauthen's record has been unchallenged in the last 35 years. Will that record ever be broken?
"It was Secretariat's 17th visit to the winner's circle and the only time he ever got there without working for it."
Red Smith
Winning the Belmont Stakes wasn't supposed to seem this easy.
They call it "the test of champions," and, at 1½ miles, that's exactly what it is.
Nevertheless, 40 years ago today, Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes in the most dominating way imaginable — by more than 30 lengths.
I know that not everyone who reads this is a horse racing enthusiast so let me define the term length for you. A length refers to the distance from a horse's nose to the tip of its tail — roughly 8 feet.
Therefore, a horse that wins a race by 30 lengths — this isn't an exact measurement, of course, merely an approximation — wins by about 240 feet — or eight–tenths of the length of a football field.
On the day of the race, a viewer could start counting — "One Mississippi, two Mississippi ..." — when Secretariat crossed the finish line and get to about "six Mississippi" before any other horse crossed it.
That's domination.
Of course, most of the major horse owners decided not to compete in the 1973 Belmont. Aside from Secretariat and his primary rival in that year's Triple Crown races, Sham, there were only three other horses entered in the race. Most owners conceded that the Belmont would be, essentially, a match race between Secretariat and Sham.
Ironically, though, Sham did not finish second to Secretariat that day. In fact, he finished last.
You might not have thought so the way the first half of the race went. Secretariat, who typically started in the back of the pack, uncharacteristically broke well and surged along the rail to take an early lead with Sham in hot pursuit on the outside, and, for the first half of the Belmont, the two ran virtually stride for stride with the other horses trailing farther and farther behind.
Then on the backstretch Secretariat began to pull away from Sham. As the horses made the turn, race caller Chic Anderson memorably said, "[Secretariat] is moving like a tremendous machine!" How could anyone forget that?
Actually, I have two specific memories of that weekend.
There is the memory of the actual race, of course. It was run, as the Triple Crown races always are, on a Saturday afternoon. I was a young boy. Summer vacation had just begun, and my family was visiting my grandmothers in Dallas. I remember being in my maternal grandmother's living room watching her TV and being amazed at Secretariat's performance.
I had seen several horse races on TV by that time — and I have seen quite a few in person since — and I have never seen another horse leave all the other horses in the dust like that. Never.
And Anderson's call has the iconic staying power of Al Michaels' exclamation, "Do you believe in miracles?" at the conclusion of the Olympic hockey game between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1980. Every time I have heard it in the last 40 years, it has taken me back to that sunny June afternoon.
The other memory is of the following day. My family took my father's mother out for lunch at a cafeteria she liked a lot. This cafeteria had portraits of the presidents lining the wall. It was known locally for those portraits as much as it was known for any of its dishes, and it was one of my favorite places to go because, well, I've had an interest in presidents since I was little.
(I can't explain it. My mother might be able to say when this fascination began, but she's been dead for nearly 20 years, and there's no point in asking my father because he was frequently absent in my early childhood — later childhood, too, for that matter, but that's another story.)
Anyway, whenever we visited Dallas, we always managed to visit this cafeteria — sometimes with Grandmother, sometimes not. It was the Highland Park Cafeteria. I'm not honestly certain that I ever knew that when I was a child. To me, it was the place with the pictures of the presidents.
Ordinarily, as I recall, the people who stood in line at the cafeteria commented on the presidential portraits that lined the wall. The portraits of the more recent presidents always prompted people to say things like "I was [insert age/marital status/place of residence/employed by/other relevant observation here] when he became president."
On that Sunday, however, everyone was talking about Secretariat.
On one level, that is understandable. Secretariat was the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.
But that was also the summer of the Senate Watergate Committee. Allegations had been made regarding the conduct of the sitting president — who had just been re–elected about seven months earlier in one of the most lopsided elections in history.
But no one was talking about that in a cafeteria line with portraits of the presidents on the wall.
In the 35 years since Affirmed became the most recent winner of thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown, a dozen horses have won the first two jewels but, for one reason or another, each came up short in the third jewel, the Belmont.
That is, if they competed in the Belmont at all.
But only one — Real Quiet — lost the Belmont by a nose — literally. The winner was Canadian–born Victory Gallop, the second–place finisher in the first two races.
It happened 15 years ago today.
The 1998 Triple Crown duel between Victory Gallop and Real Quiet will almost certainly be the inspiration for a dramatic book or documentary someday. It does not yet occupy that spot in popular memory that the Affirmed–Alydar battle of 1978 does — but I am confident that it will. All it needs is the right person to tell the story.
It practically tells itself.
In the Kentucky Derby in early May, Real Quiet held off hard–charging Victory Gallop to win the first jewel. Two weeks later, Real Quiet again defeated Victory Gallop, this time by about two lengths, in the Preakness Stakes.
But, in the much longer Belmont Stakes in early June, the finish was reversed. Victory Gallop won a thrilling race over Real Quiet, and the Triple Crown drought went on.
It has to be one of the most thrilling upsets I have witnessed in my life.
And it was a reminder that they don't call the Belmont Stakes "the test of champions" for nothing. At 1½ miles, it is the longest race that any horse will ever run and calls for endurance whereas the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness are shorter and emphasize speed.
Few horses possess both stamina and speed, which is why horses that win the first two Triple Crown races — as Real Quiet did in 1998 — frequently stumble in the third.
And yet, Real Quiet almost pulled off horse racing's hat trick. He had a clear lead as the horses made the final turn and ran for the finish line, but Victory Gallop lived up to his name and was even with Real Quiet when they crossed it.
It reminds me of the pitch of a cigarette commercial when I was a child. The ad was about how most extra–long cigarettes were 100 millimeters, but this particular cigarette was 101 millimeters — so consumers got a little more for their money. The jingle said this cigarette was "a silly millimeter longer."
A furlong isn't nearly as short as a millimeter (in truth, it is an eighth of a mile), but it's the basic measurement in horse racing so we'll have to use that for our example. If the race had been a furlong shorter, Real Quiet would have won the Triple Crown with ease. If it had been a furlong longer, Victory Gallop would have been the clear winner. No photo would have been necessary in either case.
But the order of finish of the actual distance was too close for the naked eye, and thus the fabled photo finish was required. And the photo revealed that the winner was Victory Gallop — by a nose.
Even though Real Quiet didn't win the Belmont, I think he demonstrated that he did possess that rare equine combination of speed and stamina. But so did Victory Gallop.
However, it might not have been quite so cut and dried for Real Quiet if he had been the winner of the race.
The New York Times reported that, if Real Quiet had prevailed, he might have been disqualified "because he brushed Victory Gallop twice in the homestretch."
Personally, I'm not so sure about that one. I have watched recordings of that race many times, and I have never seen Real Quiet brush Victory Gallop. But it's hard to tell. If I could see a recording from the front, where it could be determined if there was space between the horses, my determination might be different. But I don't know if such a recording exists — or existed at the time.
Tom Keyser of the Baltimore Sun called Real Quiet's loss "crushing" — which, although often overused, is sometimes the only word that is truly descriptive, and this was one of those times.
When I was a child, I heard the phrase photo finish many times, but it was always in a hypothetical sense. I never actually saw one — until 15 years ago today, when it was made real for me with nothing less than a Triple Crown riding on the outcome.
The Belmont Stakes has been the scene of great drama over the years.
That stands to reason, doesn't it, since the Belmont is the third jewel in the Triple Crown. If a horse comes into the Belmont having already won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, a win in the Belmont will secure a Triple Crown. Eleven horses have done that since World War I.
Twenty–two others came into the Belmont with wins in those two races but failed to pull off the hat trick. Most failed to win the Belmont; a few, for one reason or another, were not entered.
But it still can be a dramatic race even if a Triple Crown is not on the line — which it will not be this year.
That being the case, a certain amount of attention can be expected to be given in Saturday's race to Rosie Napravnik, who is the first female jockey to ride in all three Triple Crown races in the same year. Napravnik will be riding Unlimited Budget, a filly and currently an 8–to–1 shot starting in the 13th position.
Napravnik would certainly make news if she wins — once she rides in the Belmont, she will make history as the first female to ride in all three Triple Crown races in the same year — but she won't make history as the first woman to win a Triple Crown race. That distinction was achieved by Julie Krone, who won the Belmont Stakes aboard Colonial Affair 20 years ago today.
"I've been in one Derby, and this is my third Belmont," Krone said before the race. "But I've never thought of the fact that I haven't won a Triple Crown race. I'm not like that. I always look at the sunshine of things."
The '93 Belmont was an example of why I love to watch horse racing. There really is no such thing as a sure thing.
Colonial Affair was practically an afterthought through much of the race, holding back in the pack behind half a dozen other horses who set the early pace. As the horses made their way along the backstretch, Colonial Affair seemed to be settled in sixth place.
Not much movement could be detected in the order of the horses as they made the turn and started down the homestretch. But then, Colonial Affair seemed to appear from nowhere on the outside and sprinted past the leader to a two–length victory.
Oh, to have been a gambler with the knowledge of how that race would play out! A $2 wager on the 13–to–1 shot paid $29.80, $14.80 and $9.40.
"I don't think the question needs to be genderized," Krone said when asked how it felt to be the first woman to win a Triple Crown race. "It would feel great to anyone. But whether you're a girl or a boy or a Martian, you still have to go out and prove yourself again every day."
I would say she proved herself.
Krone retired in 1999 with 3,545 career wins, the most ever for a woman. In 2000, she became the first female jockey inducted into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame. She came out of retirement for a year and finished her career with more than 3,700 victories.
When a horse wins the Kentucky Derby, it sets off a certain amount of speculation about whether that horse can win the Triple Crown.
But most railbirds don't get excited about a horse's chances of winning the Triple Crown until the Derby winner actually wins that second jewel, the Preakness.
After all, someone has to win the Kentucky Derby, right? Win the Preakness, too, and then we'll talk.
When Secretariat won the 1973 Kentucky Derby, there was still some residual uncertainty about whether it was a true representation of the likely outcome of a duel between Secretariat and Sham. After all, Sham had beaten Secretariat decisively in the Wood Memorial a few weeks earlier.
The rematch of the top two finishers in the Derby was highly anticipated, and the Secretariat–Sham showdown riveted the attention of the sports world for the five weeks of the Triple Crown.
And when Secretariat won the Preakness 40 years ago today, it triggered a wave of excitement in the sports world. It had been 25 years since a horse had won the Triple Crown, and, in that time, only seven horses had won the first two jewels of the Triple Crown. Five of them had come along in the last 10 years alone.
While many people in horse racing did not believe a horse could win the Triple Crown again, others believed recent history indicated otherwise.
Could he do it?
The sports world was about to find out if Secretariat could become the eighth horse in 25 years to win the first two jewels of the Triple Crown, and a record crowd was on hand at Pimlico in Baltimore for the 100th running of the Preakness Stakes.
Other than the fact that Secretariat set a speed record in the Derby, perhaps the only thing that made him stand out was the hype that followed him everywhere. Investors had been paying record prices for breeding shares — as if Secretariat had already won the Triple Crown.
As he did in the Kentucky Derby two weeks earlier, Secretariat started almost casually, lumbering out of the gate and settling into the back of the pack. Investors' hearts must have skipped a beat or two.
But, about halfway through the race, he made his move and passed the other horses as if they were standing still, seizing the lead and sprinting down the stretch.
Frankly, I never saw anything like Secretariat. It's probably safe to say no one else had, either. He set records in all three Triple Crown races — records that still stand today.
And his most impressive performance was still to come — in the Belmont Stakes three weeks later when he beat Sham again, this time by 30 lengths.
If Andrew Beyer of the Washington Post is correct, Kentucky Derby winner Orb should have no trouble winning today's Preakness.
The temperature is supposed to be mild in Baltimore today — around 72° with a slight chance of rain. That's important because, as anyone who saw the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago will attest, the first race in the Triple Crown was run in muddy conditions.
Thus, the question today is, did Orb win the Kentucky Derby because of or in spite of the track conditions? Well, that's how I see it, anyway.
Beyer, though, thinks the key factor is the small field.
"The second–, third– and fourth–place finishers at Churchill Downs will not be at Pimlico," Beyer observes. "Just eight horses will challenge Orb, and it is difficult to make a solid case for any of them."
Jerry Bossert of the New York Daily News makes a solid case for how the race will play out — and he, too, thinks Orb will win it.
"[T]he Triple Crown dream continues for three more weeks," he writes.
At this point, that is something that is not obvious. It remains to be seen.
But of all the pre–Preakness opining I have seen, Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times may be the master of the obvious when he writes that the stakes are highest for Orb in today's race.
Well, duh.
It's always the most crucial. If the Kentucky Derby winner loses the Preakness, the interest level for the Belmont three weeks later plummets — to the point where only folks in the industry and diehard racing fans will care who wins.
But if the Kentucky Derby winner also wins the Preakness, the Belmont becomes a prime attraction, and advertising will sell at Super Bowl–like rates. We're in the midst of a 35–year drought in the pursuit of a Triple Crown, and horse racing could use one.
Everything hinges on the Preakness. And Chris Korman writes in the Baltimore Sun that Orb is simply better than the rest. Whereas "[t]he Derby winner's reputation always balloons somewhere on the road from Louisville to [Baltimore]," he writes, "Orb's ascension has nearly made the rest of the field an afterthought."
If Orb wins today's Preakness, TV ratings for the Belmont could set records.
I hesitate to say anything for fear of jinxing it (because I really would like to see horse racing have another Triple Crown winner), but there's a kind of cosmic energy surrounding Kentucky Derby winner Orb.
Of course, there are many questions to be answered when Orb runs in the Preakness on Saturday. Did he win the Derby because of the mud or in spite of it? It's supposed to be sunny and warm in Baltimore this weekend. How will that affect the race?
Typically, the Preakness field is about 14 or 15 horses, but Chris Korman of the Baltimore Sun reports that the field could be smaller — perhaps much smaller — than usual this year.
If the field is smaller, I suppose that increases the likelihood that the Derby winner also will win the Preakness — which would put him one win away from the Triple Crown, something that no horse has achieved in 35 years.
A few of the horses that have not yet been certified for the Preakness didn't run in the Derby. I don't know if they have ever run against Orb before. That could be a wild card.
This year is special. It is the 40th anniversary of Secretariat's Triple Crown, and I think, if you conducted a survey, Secretariat would be rated the #1 thoroughbred of all time.
And it would be appropriate — for a couple of reasons — if Orb wins the Triple Crown this year.
Phipps could have had Secretariat. He won a coin flip (dramatized in the movie "Secretariat") that entitled him to his choice of the colts being carried by mares that had mated with Bold Ruler, a horse he inherited from his mother — and he chose the one that was not Secretariat, largely because Secretariat's mother was older than the other mare.
Now, four decades after Secretariat took the racing world by storm, a horse owned by the Phipps family has an opportunity to win the Triple Crown. If Orb can win the Preakness and the Belmont, he can remove the stigma of that coin toss.
"Dinny" Phipps, Ogden Phipps' son, says the experience has been "absolutely wonderful," which is, I suppose, what anyone would say under such circumstances.
Phipps made a remark in his conversation with the Associated Press that sounds like it could have been made by the horse breeder whose daughter wound up with Secretariat — "we love our fillies ... [w]e believe the broodmare is the most important quality of the race horse."
Perhaps that sense of respect is part of the legacy of losing Secretariat all those years ago. And perhaps Dinny Phipps wants to settle the score.
For now, though, it seems he is happy to say that he is "very, very lucky."
I don't really have what folks have taken to calling a "bucket list."
Maybe I've always had a more realistic set of expectations than most people. I don't know. But it seems to me that most of the things I hoped to do when I was younger I have done.
I always liked writing and wanted to make a living doing it. So I majored in journalism, worked as a general assignment reporter, worked as a copy editor and have taught writing to university and community college students. I'm still doing the latter — as an adjunct.
I loved Theodore H. White's books on the making of the president, and I wanted to cover politics. I had no sooner finished work on my bachelor's degree than I found myself covering a gubernatorial runoff that featured a future president (Bill Clinton).
I grew up reading the Arkansas Gazette, and I dreamed that I would one day work for the Gazette. And I did, for more than 4½ years.
I grew up with a passion for team sports, especially football. I worked in the Gazette's sports department — editing stories written by journalists I had been reading for years.
If, as the old rhyme says, I should die before I wake ... I think I can honestly say that I achieved most of the goals I set for myself.
Except for one. I have never been to a Kentucky Derby. And that is something I would like to do once in my life.
(I just want to clarify one thing before I go on. When I speak of goals, of course, I'm overlooking the goals everyone has — i.e., acquiring wealth and/or power — and almost no one achieves.)
When I lived in Arkansas, I used to go to the horse track in Hot Springs on my days off in the spring. It was a grand form of entertainment. I planned on spending a certain amount of money and never expected to win my fortune. Mostly, I enjoyed watching the horses run — and watching the people who came to watch the horses run.
People watching seems to be at its peak at Churchill Downs. It always is — and I'm sure it will be when the horses run for the roses there later today.
I don't really have a dog in this hunt — except to say that I hope whichever horse wins goes on to win the Preakness and the Belmont, too. Horse racing hasn't had a Triple Crown winner in 35 years.
And, with the economy the way it is, I figure there's more than a nugget or two of truth in Mike Downey's column for CNN.com that looked back on Secretariat's Triple Crown 40 years ago this year.
"Desperately seeking Secretariat," writes Downey. "We could use a new you. A superhorse to make our hearts pound the way your hooves did. A four–legged stud to give us a break from cheating golfers, dog–torturing football quarterbacks and doped–up bike racers and baseball sluggers."
America could use a shot in the arm. That certainly was something that Secretariat provided 40 years ago.
But times weren't as bad in 1973 as they are in 2013. The burden of expectations is likely to be much heavier on the winner of today's Run for the Roses than it was for Secretariat — who, nevertheless, carried the weight of a 25–year Triple Crown drought on his back and still capped his Triple Crown run with an astonishing 30–length victory in the Belmont.
Secretariat, though, was a truly once–in–a–lifetime horse. None of his descendants has come close to duplicating his achievement.
But that is the magic of the first Saturday in May, isn't it? The possibility that the winner of the Kentucky Derby will go on to win the Preakness and the Belmont as well.
But today is a Triple Crown anniversary that may offer the tiniest bit of hope for horse racing enthusiasts that it may end soon.
Seattle Slew capped the 1977 Triple Crown race series 35 years ago today with a four–length win in the Belmont Stakes.
There was no doubt about it. Seattle Slew was a great horse, so great that Blood Horse magazine ranked him ninth in its list of the Top 100 horses of the 20th century — ahead of all but two of the other Triple Crown winners.
Seattle Slew was the first horse to win the Triple Crown while undefeated, and he remains the only horse to accomplish that feat.
But sometimes he seems to get overlooked, perhaps because he came along in a decade that had two other Triple Crown winners — and might well have had more. After all, Canonero II (1971) and Spectacular Bid (1979) both went into the Belmont Stakes with a chance to win a Triple Crown but came up short.
Obviously, Seattle Slew did not come up short in the Belmont.
It would have been wonderful if we could have seen a Triple Crown winner this year. The Triple Crown has always been a rare achievement. The horse that ends the currently 34–year drought since the last one — and make no mistake about it, I do believe it will end someday — may well be appreciated more than most because the wait has been so long.
If I'll Have Another had not been scratched but had lost the Belmont, racing fans probably would have had some wistful thoughts about what might have been, and there would have been a palpable sense of loss — but nothing like what descended upon the world of horse racing on Friday.
At least he would have made the attempt.
And it might have kicked off a wave of nostalgia for those '70s horses — Secretariat, Affirmed and the one that won the Triple Crown 35 years ago today, Seattle Slew.
This is the longest drought between Triple Crown winners in thoroughbred racing history. Those of us who enjoy watching horse racing have grown wary of Triple Crowns. Almost no one ever speaks about the possibility after the Kentucky Derby, preferring to wait and see if its winner is more than a flash in the pan — and there have been nearly two dozen of those since 1978.
But there have also been a dozen horses — including I'll Have Another — that won the first two races and came to the Belmont in search of that elusive Triple Crown. The others came up short, either spectacularly so or, more rarely, by narrow margins.
There is a reason why the Belmont is called the test of champions. The first two races are shorter. They were designed with speed horses in mind. But the Belmont is longer. It favors endurance.
It is a rare horse — a Secretariat — that combines both speed and endurance.
I've enjoyed watching the horses run since I was a child. Nearly 40 years ago, I saw my first Triple Crown winner (on TV, not in person), then two more came along in what was (and still is) rapid–fire succession for thoroughbred racing.
And we have had no more since.
We've had plenty of near misses since Affirmed won the 1978 Triple Crown.
Perhaps the most colon–tighteningly, tantalizingly, exasperatingly close near miss of them all was the 2004 Belmont Stakes, in which Birdstone overtook Smarty Jones and denied him the Triple Crown by a single length. Smarty Jones seemed to possess both speed and endurance. It was a real disappointment when he failed.
Most of the time, it is a speed horse that comes to the Belmont and loses — big. And that, in itself, answers the question that follows the exceptional horses that win the first two to the third jewel of the Triple Crown: Is this horse more than a speed horse?
Since 1978, all the two–time winners have had their opportunity to answer that question on the track.
But it will never be answered in the case of I'll Have Another. Instead of making a bid for horse racing immortality this afternoon, he was retired.
There was never going to be a shortage of important sports events today. Earlier, Maria Sharapova won the women's final at the French Open. She is now one of a handful of tennis players who won a career Grand Slam — at least one singles title in each of the four Grand Slam events.
Tonight, the Los Angeles Kings will try to win their first–ever Stanley Cup. And the Miami Heat and the Boston Celtics will play for the right to face Oklahoma City in the NBA finals.
But all that would have been overshadowed by far if I'll Have Another had won the Belmont.
Somebody wins the NBA championship, the Stanley Cup and the women's final of the French Open every year.
But it's been 34 years since a horse won the Triple Crown.
A "tomato can" is a fighter who is believed to be past his prime and an "easy" or "guaranteed" win for an up-and-coming fighter who wants to pad his record.
Sometimes, though, the "tomato can" doesn't cooperate. For example, in 1990, undefeated heavyweight champion Mike Tyson lost the title to a 42-to-1 underdog named Buster Douglas.
Another heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, almost lost his title to lightly regarded Chuck Wepner in 1975. Wepner nearly went the distance against Ali and inspired the original "Rocky" movie.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
