For Espinoza, Cauthen, time crawled leading up Belmont

ELMONT, N.Y. – Not the mile and a half, not the pressure of the Belmont Stakes. No, for jockeys who have swept the Triple Crown, the waiting for that final leg is the hardest part.

“You count down the days, the hours, the minutes,” Victor Espinoza, who was aboard American Pharoah in 2015, said on a national teleconference earlier this week.

“After the Preakness, those were the longest three weeks of my riding career,” said Steve Cauthen, who piloted Affirmed in 1978.

Espinoza and Cauthen are two of the four living riders who have won the Triple Crown, along with Ron Turcotte, who was aboard Secretariat in 1973, and Jean Cruguet, who rode Seattle Slew in 1977.

Cauthen was just 18 years old in 1978. He said by Belmont Day, his main concern was that he “didn’t want to make a mistake, not let everyone down.”

When Affirmed won, he became the third Triple Crown winner in six spring campaigns.

“After he won, everyone said it was getting too easy,” Cauthen said.

“After 37 years,” he added, referring to the gap between Affirmed and American Pharoah, “everybody thinks that’s funny.”

Turner calls Justify 'formidable'

Seattle Slew to this point is the only horse to get through the Triple Crown still unbeaten, a feat Justify will try to emulate on Saturday, when he bids to become the 13th Triple Crown winner.

Billy Turner, the now-retired trainer who guided Seattle Slew through that Triple Crown campaign in 1977, thus has a unique perspective what Justify is trying to accomplish.

“He seems to be improving with every race,” Turner said earlier this week on a national teleconference. “He’s a formidable horse.”

Justify’s bid comes just three years after American Pharoah’s success, ending a 37-year Triple Crown drought. When Seattle Slew won, he did it four years after Secretariat ended a 25-year drought.

“Slew benefited from Secretariat bringing back the Triple Crown as a major sporting event,” Turner said.