THE FINAL LEG OF A MOST UNIQUE TRIPLE CROWN

Ralph Siraco's Blog

June 2, 2009

We are on the threshold of the 141st Belmont Stakes. What started in the annual hope of a Derby winner turned Preakness winner turned Belmont victor has degraded to no chance for a traditional Triple Crown winner, no rubber match between different winners of the first two jewels of the Crown nor a dominating performer sitting on the brink of taking on his elders in the handicap division.

So, what did we get. What do we have?

We have a year where more of the promising sophomores at the start of the Triple Crown trail fell by the wayside. From the early favorite of Midshipman thru the protem favorite of Quality Road to the consolation race day favorite of Friesan Fire. A splintered group to say the least. It then was less ironic and more probable that a dominant force from the "weaker" sex could command the dialogue as we rolled through the Crown events.

Thus, Rachael Alexandra has proven the worth of that mantle while skipping the long winding road in the Big Apple. Instead, she will stay home and pose for Vogue Magazine while planning out the second-half-year strategy for a Horse Of The Year bid. Her connections reasoning a rest for their filly is more important than attempting something she already accomplished in the Preakness Stakes with pinache.

A most unlikely hero emerged in the form Mine That Bird. In that "little engine that could" run under a swashbuckling "Bor-rail" ride by Calvin Borel to take the Kentucky Derby over a sloppy-sliding race track that apparently only the diminutive gelding could handle. HOWEVER, while many--including this scribe--saw the Derby as "one of those Derbies", the dismissal of the Derby winner two weeks later in the Preakness was a critical exotics mistake. Although we can only debate whether a better trip from avis rider Mike Smith could have produced a Belmont Triple Crown bid, Rachael did her thing under Calvin again. Borel, which is riding in "fuego" right now, provided his talents as a handicapper as well as a rider when he chose to stay with the filly, forsaking a Derby winner to boot.

Jilted by the gal's caretakers, Calvin will be reunited with Mine That Bird for the Belmont. They will be the favorites to win the "Test of a Champion" and with it an unprecedented Triple Crown win by a jockey. Borel would do what many generations of great Hall of Fame riders could not and did not. A personal Triple Crown with victories aboard two different horses in the three-race spring classics.

However, there are some stout and admirable challengers standing in the path of that storyline on Saturday at Belmont Park. Charitable Man, Dunkirk and Chocolate Candy are a trio to be "reckoned with."

Whatever transpires, the Belmont this year will be a great "betting race" for the horseplayers. And, this Triple Crown year will be remembered for the MAN and not the HORSE with a Triple Crown on the line.

Best of Belmont Stakes luck, and, of course, Have A Great Race Day.