Vying for the Triple Crown!

Yeah, that's right.  We're going to talk a little horse racing.  The Jazz season is over, BYU football doesn't start for another 3 months and I don't have a baseball team that I follow (I'll leave the Baseball talk up to the Fat One), so you get to listen to me go on about horses.  

For quite a few years now I have taken some interest in the Triple Crown.  I say Triple Crown rather than using the general term of horse racing because it's not so much the racing that interests me but rather the history that goes along with it.  

Back in May of 2002 Amanda and I found ourselves lounging around our Bountiful apartment on a Saturday afternoon with no plans and nothing to do.  Bored, and with nothing to watch on the tv, we stopped on the channel that was covering the Preakness Stakes, which happened to be on that day.  

As a part of the pre-race build up they spent a lot of time promoting the Triple Crown.  I didn't know anything about it at the time and found myself being really intrigued at what was being said.  After learning that it is a task of near impossibility, our excitement grew even more when we watched the Derby winner, War Emblem, take the race that day clinching 2/3 of what is horse racing's greatest honor.  

With great anticipation, we tuned in 3 weeks later only to watch War Emblem fall short in the Belmont stakes.  Though we didn't witness a Triple Crown Winner at that time, each year since then we have followed the races in hopes of seeing a horse accomplish the feat.

You might be wondering what the big deal is with the Triple Crown.  Let me give you a little history and maybe you'll understand a little better.

In order to win the Triple Crown, a horse must win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes all in the same year.  That's three long races, in three different states, in a span of 5 weeks.  Sounds simple right?  I mean, come on, how many times have you seen your favorite team win 3 in a row?  It's actually harder than it sounds.

Since 1875 (the first time all three races were ran in the same year) only 11 horses have been able to succeed in winning the Triple Crown.  That's 11 horses in 132 years of racing.  The last horse to do so was a horse by the name of Affirmed who won it back in 1978. 

Since 1978 11 horses have won the first two legs only to fall short in the Belmont Stakes.  You might remember the names Smarty Jones, and Funny Cide, some of the more recent horses (within the last few years) that gave their all to make history only to lose in the third and final race.

That brings us to this year.  Big Brown, a horse that is being called by many in the racing circles as the most dominating horse since Secretariet, has taken the first two legs with relative ease, really without even being pushed by the competition.  

On June 7 he will run in the Belmont Stakes and many believe will be the horse to finally end the 30 year Triple Crown drought.  He's that good, in fact, he is believed to be better than just good and will prove that when he takes his place amongst a dozen great horses to do what thousands of horses who came before him couldn't.

Will he be regarded within the same category of such horses as Secretariat and Seattle Slew, or War Admiral (the horse that ran against Seabiscuit)?  Horses that rose to the occasion and proved that they were something great by winning it all, or will he be another horse that got close but was unable to seal the deal.  We'll find out in less than three weeks.

They believe the possible spoiler in the upcoming race is a Japan based horse by the name Casino Drive.  He hasn't ran in a whole lot of races but the ones he has ran in he has done very well.  Should be a good match-up. 

Preakness Stakes

Kentucky Derby