By Thomas Chambers
Just as no baseball fan really expects to see a player hit for the triple crown anymore, so it probably also goes in Thoroughbred horse racing.
Super Saver’s eighth-place finish behind Lookin At Lucky in the Preakness Stakes (Grade I) Saturday assured that another year will pass since Affirmed last won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 1978. That capped off a golden era in the 1970s that also saw Seattle Slew rule in 1977 and the immortal Secretariat make it his own in 1973.
Big Red’s mastery came 25 years after Citation in 1948; there were four TC winners in the 1940s. Currently, we’re in a 32-year drought.
Calvin Borel and Super Saver put up a game effort, well positioned coming into the turn, but when it came time to hit the gas, Super Saver was empty. So exhausted he ran nearly sideways entering the stretch while looking for a hole to shoot. Three big races in five weeks did him in.
Finally getting a decent post position, Lucky, the seven horse, ran free and easy on the backstretch, rating just off longshot First Dude, before he and Caracortado overtook that one and Super Saver. But First Dude fought gamely after setting most of the pace and hung on for second. Jackson Bend got up for third, just edging Illinois Derby bridesmaid Yawanna Twist. You wonder if Lucky could have won the Derby had he drawn a decent post position in that race, too. He seems the toughest of the three-year-old bunch.
With the thoroughbreds so lightly raced now, the common argument is that no horse will have enough foundation to be able to go the three big races in five weeks, topped off by the 1.5-mile Belmont. That’s got to be partially true, but in my relatively short time in this game, I’ve seen the people screw up more than the horses.
Gary Stevens still laments that “he never saw him coming” when his Silver Charm was beaten by Touch Gold in the 1997 Belmont.
More recently, Funny Cide deviated from his usual M.O. in 2003 and got loose on the lead in a quick pace in a wet Belmont. Jose Santos said Funny didn’t handle the wet track well, and you could tell Funny Cide just tried to run right through the adversity. You wonder if Santos could have held him back more for the stretch run.
The closest I ever saw to a Triple Crown winner was Smarty Jones the following year. To this day, I blame second-tier, or maybe third-tier, jockey Stewart Elliott for his inexperience at Belmont, not having enough “clock” in his head to understand just how big a track is The Big Sandy and not feeling the mile-and-a-half around Belmont.
Coming into the Belmont undefeated, the first since the Slew, Elliott failed to understand the enormity of the effort as he tagged right along with Purge and Rock Hard Ten, running about as fast on the backstretch, they say, as Secretariat did. It looked as if Elliott thought he was at Oaklawn in the Arkansas Derby and most of us watched in horror as he used up Smarty just about from the full backstretch on.
Birdstone, the little Grindstone colt bred for such a race, took the Belmont at 35-1, stunning the crowd into both anger at Birdstone and at Elliott. Birdstone owner Mary Lou Whitney and jockey Edgar Prado just about apologized for winning, feeling they had deprived the world of a Triple Crown.
And not only did Elliott lose the Triple Crown, he really killed my exacta that day. To make matters even worse, it was the last race Smarty Jones ever ran. He was retired soon after with “bruised ankles” and, as with Ghostzapper and Afleet Alex in more recent years, fans were deprived of yet another chance to watch a potential superstar.
Barbaro in 2006 looked like he might be able to do it, with a combination of size and speed, but his tragic Preakness took care of that. Big Brown, maybe, but he had bad feet. Don’t be disappointed in 2010. It didn’t really appear any of this year’s three-year-olds had what it took to win the Crown.
NBC Hype Machine
Reporting and researching must be really hard. But I don’t think hype is
NBC talks the talk and strings the violins in touting its horse racing coverage on TV and on its site, but they don’t really walk it.
Once again, their coverage Saturday was horrible. Understandably, they launched coverage with features on Super Saver, Calvin Borel, and trainer Todd Pletcher. You know, Todd finally reaching the pinnacle of the Derby and Calvin born in the swamps and dropping out of school. That kind of stuff.
Cut to commercial. And when they return, they do it all over again!
Then they run a snippy sound op with D. Wayne Lukas telling everyone how he is still relevant on the biggest stage.
Kent Desormeaux was criticized heavily for allegedly easing Paddy O’Prado, or perhaps just not being astute enough to realize Ice Box was coming in the Kentucky Derby and sacrificing second place.
Bob “The Raven” Costas got to him in the jock’s room and both asked and answered his own questions about that and Ol’ Kent’s mysterious, still unexplained easing of Big Brown in the Belmont. Costas looked like he was prepping him for testimony in front of the grand jury. It wasn’t pretty. Even Desormeaux seemed to be thinking “Why am I even here?”
Meanwhile, they payed absolutely no attention to track conditions or biases or the undercard, completely blowing off coverage of the Dixie Stakes while they were on the air. Bang-bang: Dixie goes off and they cut to commercial.
Also, once again, no odds. It didn’t matter to me as I had the BozoPuter fired up and was looking at real-time odds all afternoon.
And another significant story was the rekindling of the “party” atmosphere in the Pimlico infield through the Maryland Jockey Club’s “Get Your Preak On” marketing campaign. Maryland racing, in such dire straights, decided it would provide all-you-can-drink beer for $20 after curtailing festivities in the past couple of years as the rowdies took over. Take away the beer and attendance dropped. It might not have been pretty video, but it was a story nonetheless.
With friends like this, horse racing could really use a TV network.
Epilogue
Who do they think this guy is? Frank Sinatra?
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Thomas Chambers is our main on the rail. He brings you TrackNotes (nearly) every Friday. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on May 21, 2010