Triple Crown Hopeful

    With the most recent win by 'California Chrome', speculation over the possibility of a Triple Crown winner is already building. The Triple Crown races are the most popular races and have the largest purses attached to them. It begins with The Kentucky Derby in Louisville, followed two weeks later by The Preakness at Baltimore, Maryland, and then after a three week break, The Belmont Stakes in New York.
   Thus far in 2014 California Chrome has won the first two Triple Crown races.

      California Chrome won the Derby by a couple of lengths, and the Preakness by a larger margin, but now comes the real test for endurance. Did I mention the races get longer with each outing? The Kentucky Derby is a mile and a quarter,...The Preakness is a mile and three-sixteens,.. and the Belmont is a mile and a half. If California Chrome does indeed capture the Triple Crown, it would mark the first time we have had a colt win all three since 1978 when 'Affirmed' won the coveted title.
    The American population has changed a lot since the 1970's, so let me bring you up to speed on just how great some of these earlier winners actually were.
    'Alydar' was suppose to be the favorite for the sport in 1978 but Affirmed upset the fav and won the Kentucky Derby going away. Two weeks later The Preakness was a better race for both colts as they traded the lead with Affirmed winning by a neck at the finish line.

 At the Belmont, both horses started slow to conserve energy, but the last mile was one of the fastest on record as Affirmed pulled away to capture the crown. It was the third fastest Belmont in history,....  and that brings me to the real reason for this posting...
     The greatest horse I ever saw race was 'Secretariat'... the giant colt out of Claiborne Farms. Fathered by 'Bold Ruler', Secretariat was head and shoulders above the crowd in 1973 when he won all of the Triple Crown races. Born March 30, 1970, the chestnut brown colt had three white socks and a white star on his forehead. Five names were submitted to the United States Jockey Club for the newborn colt, but all five were turned down. Secretary Elizabeth Ham of Claiborne Farms is credited with submitting the name finally accepted. Little did they know it would be a name to go down in history as the greatest horse to ever race.
    A so-so career as a two-year old would be recorded by the giant chestnut stallion, but that only baited the hook for the following season. At the 1973 Kentucky Derby, Secretariat broke from the gates dead last...and still won by two and a half lengths at the finish, becoming the first horse to run the Derby in less than two minutes.  At the Preakness it was almost the same thing as Secretariat came out of the gates last and topped the field by two lengths at the end. 'Sham' was second and 'Our Native' third.

 
   The build-up for the Belmont Stakes was really frantic. No horse had won the Triple Crown in 25 years. Secretariat's photo was on the cover of Time Magazine, Newsweek Magazine, and Sports Illustrated the week of the race. The one and a half mile Belmont took the rest of the field out of it as Secretariat won by 31 lengths and was pulling away. Six thousand ticket holders from that race kept their tickets as souvenirs rather than redeem them for winnings. The average size of a thoroughbred horses heart is nine pounds, BUT when he died in 1989 the autopsy showed Secretariat's heart weighed twenty-two pounds..
     I only got to see the above races on television but there was no comparison when they paraded the horses on the paddock to the starting gates. Secretariat was gigantic and obviously stuck out from the crowd... He was the greatest that ever was !! 

Editor's Update:   There was NO triple crown winner this year as California Chrome finished in a tie for fourth place at the Belmont Stakes race in New York. 'Tonalist' won the race, 'Commissioner' was second, and 'Medal Count' came in third. It has been 36 years since the last Triple Crown winner, but there will not be one in 2014.