I don’t get the emotional attachment so many people have to this horse. Then again, it probably takes understanding the psychology at play in Peter Shaffer’s Equus to get it. But I think horse racing has all the redeeming social value of cockfighting (or dogfighting, given the Michael Vick scandal).…
Barbaro, of course, was the latest winner — by one of the largest margins in history — of the Kentucky Derby. His win that had Equine mobs betting he would be the first horse to win the elusive Triple Crown since Affirmed did it almost 30 years ago [in 1978]. Only 11 horses have achieved the dubious honor of galloping to victory in the three grueling Triple Crown races – the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes – over a five-week period….
The sport of kings? Indeed! But so is fox hunting….
(“National Mourning for a Horse? Puh-leeese,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 31, 2007)
I share the above not only to disclose my abiding bias against horse racing, but also to show why I was not reveling in the national expectation that California Chrome would win yesterday’s Belmont Stakes and be crowned the first Triple Crown winner in 36 years. He placed 4th.
Frankly, given that 12 horses have tried and failed to win this crowning race since Affirmed, I’m not sure why anybody expected California Chrome to become anything but the 13th.
This is why the only thing noteworthy about yesterday’s spectacle is the instructive post-race rant California Chrome co-owner Steve Coburn delivered for TV viewers.
Here, in part, is what he said:
I’ll never see – and I’m 61 years old – another Triple Crown winner in my lifetime because of the way they do this… If you don’t make enough points to get into the Kentucky Derby you can’t run in the other two races…
It’s all or nothing because this is not fair to these horses that have been running their guts out for these people and for all the people who believe in him. This is a coward’s way out, in my opinion.
(Yahoo Sports, June 7, 2014)
I could not agree more. I mean, who would be interested in watching a triathlon if jerks could skip the swimming and cycling, then jump in for the final running leg fully rested?
In this case, only three horses in the field of 11 competed in all three races, and California Chrome bested the other two in all three. What’s more, that Affirmed won his crowning race at Belmont against a field that consisted almost entirely of horses that skipped one of the first two races does not negate this principle of fair play. This just, er, affirms what an exceptionally great horse Affirmed was.
Therefore, instead of dismissing Coburn as a “sore loser,” the stewards of horse racing would do well to heed his cry for a rule change. For it’s bad enough that 90 percent of the fans of this sport show interest only in the Triple Crown races. But if this trend continues (of allowing horses to skip either of the first two races), not only will there never be another winner of the Triple Crown, even these three premier races will become no more popular than Polo matches, which are all played in relative obscurity.
Incidentally, you too would probably go on a “we-was-robbed” rant if you watched your horse’s potential to earn tens of millions (from other races and stud fees) bite the dust the way Coburn did.
Meanwhile, I’d bet my life savings that you cannot name the last of the 12 horses that went into the Belmont Stakes with a shot at becoming a Triple Crown winner since Affirmed; nor, more to the point, name the last horse that became the skunk at the party, which Belmont winner Tonalist became in New York yesterday — after skipping both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes.
But it hardly matters because, by the time another horse has a shot, you won’t be able to name California Chrome or any of the other horses that ran in this latest equine farce either.
Related commentaries:
National mourning…