LAS VEGAS – With the Triple Crown races behind us and getting ready for the dog days of summer (when the sports books here are), it’s time to clean out this reporter’s notebook:
Belmont handle up, but . . .
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There is an old proverb that “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” So is the new “Road to the Kentucky Derby” system of qualifying horses for America’s most famous race.
“We sought in this Breeders’ Cup to create a Super Bowl of the sport.” – John Gaines, first chairman of Breeders’ Cup
“People understand that the Kentucky Derby is the Super Bowl of horse racing.” – Kevin Flanery, current president of Churchill Downs
“We hear all the time that Westminster is the Super Bowl of dog shows.” – David Frei, canine commentator, USA Network
Thu, 06/14/2012 - 13:07
If only some of those 85,811 fair weather fans who jammed Belmont Park last Saturday would hang around the game for another week. Unfortunately, the sport continues to deal with its own strain of ADD (attendance deficit disorder), so most of those 85,811 will be doing on the Saturday after the Belmont Stakes whatever it was they were doing the Saturday before, which was not going to the races.
On the morning after the Belmont Stakes, in a state of renewed bewilderment, a pilgrim hastened to the Belmont barn of Allen Jerkens to ask the burning question. Jerkens, being to Thoroughbred racing what Delphi is to oracles, figured to be the right guy to ask why it has become so hard for a horse to win the Triple Crown.
“How would I know?” Jerkens said. “I never even won one of those races.”
Fair enough. So how’s the weather up there?
In the jam-packed aisle of the Belmont Park box seat section, not long after the horses went under the wire in the 144th Belmont Stakes, Paul Reddam flattened himself against the railing as Michael Matz and the Union Rags entourage squeezed by, on the way to the winner’s circle. Matz paused long enough to commiserate once again with Reddam, but Reddam would have none of it.
"You’ve got a wonderful colt,” Reddam told the trainer.
Fri, 06/08/2012 - 18:07
Before I’ll Have Another was injured and withdrawn from the Belmont Stakes, people who care about horse racing hoped that he could win the Triple Crown and give the sport an exciting and positive story. It hasn’t had many of those lately.
The superficial flexor tendon of the equine forelimb is about 18 inches long. It runs from just above the knee to the pastern. It is about 1.2 centimeters wide and five millimeters thick, and on Friday at Belmont Park, if you asked around, there was nothing superficial about it.
In fact, the injury sustained by I’ll Have Another, forcing his scratch from the 144th Belmont Stakes the following day, was a deep wound to the heart of the sport, poised as it was to welcome the first Triple Crown winner since 1978 to the ranks of the 11 colts who had come before.
For racing fans old enough to remember Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed winning the Triple Crown, many subsequent attempts to sweep the series have seemed almost sacrilegious. Horses such as Real Quiet, Funny Cide, Charismatic, and Big Brown didn't deserve to put their names on a short list with the sport's all-time greats.