I usually don’t watch any of the Triple Crown legs until the Belmont Stakes comes up. And then it’s only if the same horse has won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes.
So, what did I do today? I sat down with my wife and watched American Pharaoh win the Preakness.
What’s more, the horse won it going away … in the slop … in a downpour.
It was impressive.
Now I’m going to watch the Belmont Stakes for sure to see if this horse can become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978, when Affirmed beat another great horse, Alydar, in the sport’s greatest two-horse duel over the course of all three races.
I’m pulling hard for American Pharaoh to win the Belmont.
But if you want to see the sport’s greatest exhibition of equine dominance, take a look at this:
Horse-racing buffs know that this is Kentucky Derby weekend.
I’m not one of them. I’ve never really gotten into horse racing, let alone betting on the ponies. As for racing’s Triple Crown, well, I don’t care much about that, either.
Except when a certain thing happens. I begin to care about when the same horse wins the first two races of the Triple Crown: the Derby and the Preakness.
Then comes the Belmont Stakes and that is when I get interested. I usually tune in to the final Triple Crown race to see if the Derby and Preakness winner can win the Triple Crown.
The first time I got really interested in this three-horse event occurred in 1973, when Secretariat astounded the world by winning the Belmont Stakes — and the Triple Crown — in utterly astonishing fashion. (See link attached to this blog and you’ll see what I mean.)
Of all the great stories and observations about that race I’ve heard, my favorite came from jockey Ron Turcotte.
As Secretariat galloped into the home stretch, Turcotte has said, he noticed he couldn’t hear any other horse noises; no horses grunting, no hooves pounding … only the sound of his own horse’s hooves pounding along at a record pace.
It was then that Turcotte turned around and saw that Secretariat was running all alone. The second-place horse was about 20 lengths back. I should add that at no point in the race did Turcotte hit his horse with the whip jockeys use to make their beasts run faster.
I’m sure some folks will get all excited about the Kentucky Derby. I’ll get excited if the Derby’s winner pulls off another win at the Preakness.
