TOO OFTEN IT’S ABOUT EVERYTHING BUT THE RACE

Should We Still Care About The Triple Crown? Obviously that’s a rhetorical question…but in essence a very legitimate one. Although the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes are linked in tradition, like everything else in sports, business and culture, the Triple Crown days of Citation are as different from those of Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed as those halcyon 70’s days are from the absence of a Triple Crown winner for over thirty years.

We know how difficult it is to win the Triple Crown. Only eleven horses have done it since Sir Barton first accomplished the feat in 1919. Curiously, there were three Triple Crown winners in the thirties (Gallant Fox in 1930, Omaha in 1935 and War Admiral in 1937.) Then in the 1940’s there were four horses that won all three (Whirlaway in ’41, Count Fleet in ’43, Assault in ’46 and Citation in ’48.) It was another twenty-five years until Secretariat ended the drought, and he was the first of another cluster of three that won in the 70’s. Secretariat won in ’73, followed by Seattle Slew in ’77 and Affirmed in ’78. Of course 1978 was the last time it was accomplished, despite the fact that since Spectacular Bid in 1979, ten horses have gone into the Belmont with a chance to win the Triple Crown. Six of those have come since 1997 when Silver Charm won the first two legs and lost by a neck in the Belmont. He was followed by Real Quiet in ’98, Charismatic in ’99, War Emblem in 2002, Funny Cide in ’03, Smarty Jones in ’04 and Big Brown last year. Those seven years gave us disappointment after disappointment, and I believe that those disappointments created a very subtle change in the outlook of owners and trainers toward Triple Crown preparation. 

Of the seven horses that spoiled the Triple Crown attempts between 1997 and 2008 (although many still argue it wasn’t Da’ Tara that spoiled last year’s attempt but the questionable training of Dick Dutrow and riding of Kent Desormeaux that did in Big Brown), only Victory Gallop, who beat Real Quiet in the Belmont in 1998, ran in all three Triple Crown races. In fact, when Victory Gallop won that race it was the second year in a row that trainer Bob Baffert had a horse lose the Triple Crown by the smallest of margins in the Belmont when that one was settled by a nose.

I said before that the there is now a marked difference in the philosophy of owners and trainers. Some might argue that the lighter and lighter pre-Triple Crown race schedules are a result of a breed that is more and more fragile as it is bred more and more for speed. I believe that is only part of the equation. When Bob Baffert lost those two heart breaking Belmont Stakes back-to-back in ’97 and ’98 he was haunted by the thought that had he demanded a bit less of either Silver Charm and/or Real Quiet in their pre-Triple Crown prep schedules they might have been a bit fresher when the Belmont rolled around. So in 2001 he took a calculated risk with Point Given, who arguably was at the time and still might be the best three-year old any of us have seen since Spectacular Bid. Because Baffert wanted to keep Point Given fresh for the Triple Crown he gave the colt only two preps prior to the Kentucky Derby. Unfortunately, the gamble didn’t pay off as the colt was not as tight as he might have otherwise been for the Derby and ran fifth. He then came back to destroy the Preakness and Belmont fields and went on to win the Haskell Invitational and Travers. But a philosophy was born and lighter training regimens have become the norm.

What does all this have to do with handicapping the Belmont Stakes, you ask? Well, I believe that there are two types of mindsets regarding the Test of the Champion. The first mind-set looks at the Belmont as the third leg of the Triple Crown in a way that weighs the merits of each horse in the Belmont on how they performed in the first two legs. I’m not implying here that the proven exploits of Derby winner and Preakness runner-up Mine That Bird and unproven attempts by  Flying Private, the only other Belmont entrant to compete in the Derby and Preakness are not ultimately important…that would be ludicrous. By the same token, I think it is well within reason to assume that many handicappers and bettors feel in the back of their minds that horses like Chocolate Candy, Dunkirk, Mr. Hot Stuff, and Summer Bird, who raced in the Derby but not the Preakness or Luv Gov, who skipped the Derby and competed in the Preakness all have a decided disadvantage because they did not race in both the Derby and Preakness and that Charitable Man, Miner’s Escape and Brave Victory  have a mountain to climb because they raced in neither. What that creates is a subjective mindset that demands more of the eight challengers than the two Derby/Preakness graduates. That means that handicappers and bettors are looking at one race as a part of three rather than as an individual race with its own set of circumstances. I dare say that looking at the Belmont as a part of the Triple Crown and not as an individual race of its own is what never saw the likes of Lemon Drop Kid, Touch Gold, Sarava Birdstone or Da’ Tara coming.

That is why it might be germane to separate the Belmont from the Preakness and Derby in the same way you should separate the Preakness from the Derby. A great performance in legs one and/or two very rarely has anything to do with how a horse will perform in leg three as a poor performance in either one or both earlier legs does. Yes, a wonderful runner like Curlin, who was one race short due to inexperience when he finished third in the 2007 Derby did signal his coming greatness…but that was an exception. For instance, we probably think we now know who the real Mine That Bird is after he duplicated his “surprise” Kentucky Derby showing in the Preakness. But does the fact that Flying Private moved forward big time in the Preakness from his Derby performance mean he is going to improve yet again, or was he simply “fresher” after not running a lick in the Derby than all the first leg returnees that had nothing left when they ran back in Baltimore?  

On the First Saturday in May, all four horses that are running here after skipping the Preakness regressed from their final Kentucky Derby prep. But all four are bred to run this far and each had a minor to major excuse for their failure, so is that poor performance a determining factor on the down side, or should the Derby instead be looked at as another prep for this. In that light, Chocolate Candy getting badly squeezed at the start and Dunkirk, in addition to being ill-prepared with only three career races stumbled at the start before getting steadied. Wouldn’t it be better to just throw their Derby performances out rather than consider them a part of some mythical triad? The same could be said of Mr. Hot Stuff, who was also bumped and squeezed at the start and Summer Bird, who actually ran credibly well as he advanced a bit in the late stages when seven wide.

Mine That Bird will take even more “hope we’re not going to the funeral money” than he did in Baltimore. Will he turn out to be as hickory as Hard Spun and Curlin were in 2007 when they dug in gallantly in all three legs, or Afleet Alex did in 2005? Or will he be this year’s Big Brown? We’ll know shortly before 7:00 pm on Saturday, and those who believe he can do it will have to settle for far less odds at the windows than the failures vs successes odds say he will.

It seems that by the time we get to the Belmont handicappers, bettors and just plain fans are as worn out by the ordeals of the five weeks as the horses that compete. Conversation gets around to a decline in attendance because there is no Triple Crown possibility. And this year took an even bigger hit when Preakness winner Rachel Alexandra was correctly withheld from the Belmont. Remember when Street Sense lost the Preakness, the NYRA, which at that time was under a lot of pressure (franchise in the wind, etc.) for days seemingly sent out a public relations broadside every twenty minutes bemoaning the fact that they had lost 40,000 in attendance. Then when owner Tafel and trainer Nafzger did what we knew they were going to do all along (take their marbles and go home when they had no chance at the Triple Crown) Belmont Stakes day took another hit. Then along came Rags to Riches and some of the buzz and likely a considerable attendance spike came into play. All this is understandable, but it is almost as though all of that had some bearing on the level of importance of the race, and that level of importance had something to do with how the horses were going to run.

I know I’ve spent a lot of time talking about this, but I think it is important to understand that the Triple Crown is an entity unto itself. It is what you win if you finish first in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes. That lofty goal and the considerably more often failure to achieve it than succeed in gaining it, which of course for 2009 ended in Baltimore three weeks ago, has nothing to do with how the ten horses are going to perform on Saturday. Yet its mere presence is like a heavy grid of tradition, business and culture that weighs on the very handicapping of the race.

(Only Once Around The Track And Further Than Ever)

By the time the ten horses scheduled to contest Saturday’s Belmont Stakes finish the race they’ll have gone around just once and they’ll finish right where they started. Like just about any other distance race in the nation…there are two turns, a long backstretch and challenging home stretch. But what is different about a once-around at Belmont Park is that it is a mile and a half oval, by far the longest, widest turned race course in the country. And that is what makes the race The Test of a Champion.

If a horse has no speed and needs to come from out of the clouds to win a race, he isn’t likely to win the Belmont Stakes. If a horse is a dead speed, come and catch me if you can type runner than they most likely will…catch him that is. That being said, Birdstone came from Suffolk County to beat Smarty Jones and Da’ Tara walked on the front end from gate to wire last year when there wasn’t a competitor in the field that could have gotten the mile and a half in a van.

However, it is usually the horse that can continue throughout at a strong and steady pace that has traditionally had the advantage in the Belmont Stakes, and in 2009 we’ve got a pair of speed horses and a number of deep closers. See…just handicap the race as though you were handicapping a 40K claimer on a Thursday afternoon.

Speaking of handicapping the race, Rick will have his Belmont preview right here on these pages on Friday morning. Make sure you check back.