Real Quiet and Victory Gallop descended upon Belmont Park for the 1998 Belmont Stakes with best act in the business. They’d already run 1-2 in the Derby and the Preakness, and the third leg figured to offer more of the same.
Victory Gallop, though, was more than just a striving second banana. His people had their eyes on top billing, and Real Quiet, let’s face it, was trying to become the most blue-collar Triple Crown winner in history, having once lost a race in New Mexico.
[bc_video_id:235274:]Silver Charm, the star of the 1997 show, tangled with what was probably the deepest, meanest bunch of 3-year-olds since the 1975 Triple Crown dramatics provided by Foolish Pleasure, Avatar, Master Derby, and Diabolo.
Sunday Silence, smarting from a bruised foot, missed three days of training between his win in the 1989 Kentucky Derby and his thriller over Easy Goer in the Preakness. Following the Preakness, the black colt trained without interruption at Belmont Park, where he made headlines inflicting an accidental head wound upon his trainer one morning with a rearing front hoof. Blood trickling from his bald dome, Charlie Whittingham reacted in perfect character:
“I just hope he didn’t hurt himself on my hard head.”
[bc_video_id:235304:]Alysheba, the Derby and Preakness hero of 1987, entered the Belmont Stakes with a bi-coastal fan base and a rip-roaring story, led by larger-than-life trainer Jack Van Berg and his quietly confident jockey, Chris McCarron.
“I told Chris in the paddock he could go to the lead and gallop them to death,” Van Berg says whenever someone asks. “Alysheba had all the speed to put those horses away any time he wanted to.”
[bc_video_id:235308:]Compared with Spectacular Bid, Pleasant Colony offered a more forthright tale. Even his trainer, the late Johnny Campo, had few delusions going into the 1981 Belmont after the colt had won the Wood Memorial by three, the Derby by three-quarters, and the roughly run Preakness by a length.
“The horse needed a break,” Campo said.
History, of course, does not allow for such luxuries. To that point there had been 22 horses win the Derby and the Preakness, and all but the two who had gone wrong – Burgoo King and Bold Venture – showed up for the Belmont.
Spectacular Bid should have lost the 1979 Florida Derby after a weird, wide trip, but he didn’t. He could have lost the 1980 Strub Stakes when Flying Paster ran the race of his life, but he didn’t. And if he’d made one mistake in the 1980 Haskell Handicap he would have lost to champion mare Glorious Song. But he didn’t.
The notion persists, agonizing in its simplicity. If Spectacular Bid, as good as he was, couldn’t win the Triple Crown, nor Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Silver Charm, or Smarty Jones, was it ever reasonable to expect Pleasant Colony, Real Quiet, Charismatic, War Emblem, Funny Cide, or Big Brown to pull it off?
The question will be asked and answered again June 9 at Belmont Park when I’ll Have Another, the horse of the hour, is thrown into the maw of a daunting historical trend in his attempt to add the Belmont Stakes to his Kentucky Derby and Preakness victories.
Anthony Hamilton, a top jockey from the 19th century, and the horse Planet, who won 27 of 31 starts in a pre-Civil War-era career, were announced as selections to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame on Thursday by the Hall’s historic review committee.
Hamilton and Planet will be inducted on Aug. 10 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., along with the horse Ghostzapper, jockey John Velazquez, and trainers Roger Attfield and Robert Wheeler, who were elected to the Hall of Fame in balloting among contemporary candidates earlier this year.
Retired Hall of Famer best known as the trainer of Alydar, who finished second to Affirmed in all three Triple Crown races in 1978, the last time a horse swept all three races. He served as chief steward in Kentucky during a six-year tenure that ended in controversy over the Life At Ten incident at the 2010 Breeders’ Cup. He has a suit pending against the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission over his firing in late November. His late father, Syl, was also a Hall of Fame trainer.
Age: 66
Residence: Lexington, Ky.
Carmen Barrera, the widow of Hall of Fame trainer Laz Barrera, died last Sunday at her home in La Costa, Calif., after suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, according to her son, Larry. She was 87.
A graveside service is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. on Thursday at Live Oak Cemetery in Monrovia. Calif. Carmen Barrera will be buried next to her husband.
“She was a great lady. She was my best friend,” Larry Barrera said.
She had been under hospice care in recent weeks, Larry Barrera said.
