Citation's Triple Crown

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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.

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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.

Lombardi's Centennial

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Today is a special day for Green Bay Packers fans like myself.

It would have been the 100th birthday of Vince Lombardi.

I barely remember watching Lombardi coach the Packers to victory in Super Bowl II. My family had just gotten its first TV set a few months earlier — black and white (color TV was way out of my parents' budget in those days) — and my mind still houses memories of seeing the Packers play on TV in those days.

Granted, those memories are kind of like those scratchy black–and–white newsreels that you see from time to time on documentaries, but that's where my lifelong support for the Packers was born.

My father was a college professor when I was growing up, and sometimes he spent the summers taking advanced education courses at other schools. One year — probably a year or two after Lombardi left the Packers' sideline — Dad spent about six weeks in Wisconsin. When he came home, he brought back a copy of the Packers' yearbook for that season for me. It was my most cherished possession for the next couple of years — until it literally fell apart.

Lombardi is an iconic figure for lots of people. In Green Bay, they call him St. Vince, the only Packer coach (so far) to win back–to–back Super Bowls. One other coach did take the Packers to consecutive Super Bowls, but he didn't win both.

I suppose when (if) another coach duplicates Lombardi's achievement, he will be elevated to sainthood in Green Bay. Until that happens, though, Lombardi stands alone.

I have vague memories of watching Lombardi in his one and only season of coaching the Washington Redskins in 1969, but the Redskins hadn't been good for a long time, and they didn't get too much TV coverage in those days (as I recall). Lombardi's presence raised the interest level, though, and he did wind up coaching the Redskins to a winning season.

He probably would have accomplished even greater things in the years ahead, but he was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 1970 and died before the next season began.

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I remember when he died in September 1970. The memory is linked to a childhood memory.

My father had been away at another advanced education course (at Northwestern, as I recall), and he was due to return by air on a Wednesday so Mom, my brother, some friends of the family and I piled into the family car and drove to Little Rock to pick him up.

As we drove to the airport, we had the car radio on. On the newscast, I heard reports that Lombardi was near death.

When we arrived at the airport, we were told that Dad had been delayed several hours. I don't remember why. Perhaps there were problems with the plane. Maybe he missed his flight and had to take a later one.

Whatever the reason was, my mother consulted with the family friends and decided to go home, have dinner and drive back to the airport when Dad's flight was due to arrive. That's what we did.

As we drove back to the airport that night, I remember staring out the windows of the car at a relatively starry sky and hearing another radio report that said Lombardi was likely to die within hours.

We greeted Dad's plane and drove home. I don't remember hearing the radio on the return trip. The adults were too busy talking, and the radio would have interfered.

But the next morning, when I got up, I remember going into the living room where my father was having his breakfast in front of the TV, which was reporting that Lombardi had died a few minutes earlier. I felt a depth of loss that I have rarely felt in my life. He was 57 years old.

And today he would have been 100. Most people don't live to 100; even fewer of Lombardi's generation have done so, and I sincerely doubt that, had cancer not ended his life, he would still be alive today.

But the 100th anniversary of his birth is a good occasion for reflecting on his life and times.

A Test to the Wire

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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?

Making It Look Ridiculously Easy

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"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

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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.)

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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.

Everyone was talking about a racehorse.

Beating the Divine Miss M ... Again

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"I mean, a lot of what I have or possess has helped me get to the stage where I am today."

Maria Sharapova

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The challenge for defending champion Maria Sharapova in today's French Open women's final couldn't have been clearer.

Her opponent, Serena Williams, held a 13–2 head–to–head advantage over Sharapova and had won the previous 30 consecutive matches.

And there were times when I thought she would meet that challenge.

But it was not to be.

There was a lot of interest in this match. It was the first time that the top two women in the world had met in the French Open final in nearly 20 years. Sharapova, as I say, was the defending champion, but Williams hadn't won in Paris in more than a decade — since defeating her sister Venus in straight sets in 2002. Today was the first time she had been in the French Open final since that day.

I suppose a defending champion, whether in an individual sport or a team sport, is favored to repeat. Consequently, I guess, Sharapova would have been expected to be the favorite today. But Williams has been hitting the ball so well that I think she was favored by most observers.

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Most of them may have thought that Williams would have an easy time of it, but that was not true. While she did sweep the sets, Sharapova doggedly fought back in each and made Williams work for the title.

The bottom line? Williams defeated Sharapova, 6–4, 6–4.

Prior to today's match, Judy Battista wrote in today's New York Times that Williams, so long in the shadow of her sister (even though Serena has won more Grand Slam titles and more money), is reminiscent of Steffi Graf a quarter of a century ago. Battista wondered if Williams could match Graf's dominance of Natasha Zvereva in the 1988 final.

Graf, too, swept the sets in the final, but she did so at 6–0, 6–0 in a little more than half an hour. If you know nothing but the scores of today's final, you know Williams did not dominate Sharapova like that. The Divine Miss M, as I have already said, put up a great fight — and there were times when I really thought she might come back and win.

But Williams controlled the match. She didn't dominate it, but it was clearly hers practically from the start, and she went on to become, at 31, the oldest women's singles champion at the French Open since the dawn of the open era in the 1960s.

In 1988, a year before she turned 20, Graf swept the Grand Slam. Williams has won all four Slam events at least twice in her career, and she is the defending champion in the remaining two Slams this year — Wimbledon and the U.S. Open — but she didn't win the Australian Open so she will have to wait until at least next year before she will have another chance to win her first true Grand Slam.

She might not do it. There are several talented — and hungry — women on the tour these days, and she can't be expected to continue to play at this level indefinitely.

But right now, she's on top of the world.

Getting Nosed Out of a Triple Crown

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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.

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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.

Making History at the Belmont

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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.

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"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.

Unlimited Budget doesn't face the long odds that Colonial Affair did, but observers believe the winners of the first two races, Orb and Oxbow, are the favorites to win on Saturday.

When Secretariat Won the Preakness

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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.

(There will be no such talk this year. Oxbow won yesterday's Preakness, not Orb, the Kentucky Derby winner.)

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.

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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.

Prepping for the Preakness

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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.

As Preakness Looms, Orb Surrounded by Cosmic Energy

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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.

You see, Orb is the very first Kentucky Derby winner for the family of the legendary horse breeder Ogden Phipps.

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."