My very first trip to the races was June 8, 1968 when they were holding the 100th Belmont Stakes. Belmont had just been rebuilt and opened that year. There was a Triple Crown possibility then too, but the absolute strangest of ones that would have been blessed with the world's largest asterisk.
Dancer's Image won the Kentucky Derby, and Forward Pass won the Preakness. And there was a chance for a Triple Crown? Yes.
Dancer's Image was disqualified after a post-race urine analysis showed the then banned drug Phenylbutazone, "bute," in the horse's system. Forward Pass was second, and was awarded the first place purse. Peter Fuller, the owner of Dancer's Image launched an interminable lawsuit, and eventually saw a successful appeal, but then a reversal of that appeal. Dancer's Image was the pari-mutuel winner because the payouts occur before post-race analysis, but Forward Pass is considered the winner, being placed first after the disqualification. Purse money went to the owner of Forward Pass.
So, I was thus introduced into the world of racing. I loved it! I loved the program, I loved The Morning Telegraph, that mammoth broadsheet that cost 75 cents when all other newspapers didn't cost more than 10 cents. I loved deciphering the lines in the past performances. I was hooked.
I loved hitting my first $2 bet, a daily double that saw a return of $22--Metairie Padre and Cross the Sea. In that year of racing, the daily double was the only exotic wager. No exactas, no quinielas, no three, four, five, six, multi-leg bets, no Grand Slam, no triples, no superfectas. Sellers of tickets on one side of the mutual bays, cashiers on the other. Separate lines for $2 bets, $5 bets $10 bets and then a separate solo window for $100 bets. There was a $6 combo window: $2 across the board. And, I believe there were separate $2 windows for place and show bets. Cashiers cashed all types of bets. But count your return. They were known to short you.
And back I went. And one of the brothers I first went out with went back too. He eventually had a career working for a racing publication/tout sheet, and shares his name with that of FourStarDave, his boss's horse, named after him, that went on to be the first New York bred horse to win $1 million. They all appeared in the winner's circle. Often.
For a while, we went to every Belmont Stakes. We saw the Triple Crowns of the 1970s: Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affrimed. When Affirmed won. my wife and I and another friend were at the races. When Affirmed won I said to no one in particular, "It's going to be a long time before someone does that again." The same three of us were together again in the living room watching American Pharoah finally add his name to the list of Triple Crown winners. The three of us are all on Medicare now.
When I said "long time" I didn't mean win the Triple Crown. I meant win the Triple Crown and always beat the same second place horse, and at the Belmont, by the narrowest of margins. Alydar was a fierce opponent. Alydar was an amalgam name created by Mrs. Gene Markey of Calumet Farm. The horse was named after Prince Aly Khan, son of a Sultan and leader of a Muslim sect, an international playboy and polo player, who was once married to Rita Hayworth. The "dar," was short for darling. I'm sure he was.
Little did I then know, that yes, it would even be a long time before someone won the Triple Crown in any fashion. Thirty-seven years before American Pharoah lit up the world with an easy victory in the Belmont.
As fast as Secretariat? No, but not slow either. The 4th fastest running of the race. Undefeated at the time, like Seattle Slew? No. One loss, his first, in his prior seven lifetime races. Slugging it out with the same second place horse in all three races? No. But basically burying the competition and making it look easy. And his Belmont odds reflected a betting confidence all day. We went of at 75 cents to the dollar, odds-on, in the betting parlance. He was the only favorite to win that day on a 13 race card.
Thank goodness someone finally won the Triple Crown. After every year's failure to win the race and take home the Triple Crown trophy, there was always the talking head gibberish about changing the format. More time between races, shorten the Derby. Jury-rig the whole sequence so there would finally be a winner. Silence. It can be done. Someone just has to come along as a 3 year-old good enough to beat all-comers of the other 3 year-olds.
And in 2015, that 3 year-old is American Pharoah, trained by a Hall-of-Fame trainer Bob Baffert, owned by perhaps a financial bad boy, Ahmed Zayat, and ridden by Victor Espinoza, who might, according to the New York Post, share the companionship of pretty young females concurrently on the East and West Coasts. You always need an edge in the game.
American Pharoah? The sire is Pioneer of the Nile, who finished second in the 2009 Kentucky Derby. The grandsire is Empire Maker, a winner of the Belmont Stakes in 2003, and one who thwarted Funny Cide's bid for a Triple Crown.
The misspelling of Pharoah? That was caused by a contest winner who named the colt online for Ahmed Zayat, who likes to have people suggest names for his horses. Pharoah should be Pharaoh.
It's nice to anticipate winning the Triple Crown. When Secretariat had won the first two races in record breaking fashion, he was on the covers of Sports Illustrated, Time and Newsweek before the Belmont Stakes. No pressure there.
So, will American Pharoah "save" racing? Another talking head query meant to give them a reason to open their flapping jaws, or log on and write something. Well, will it?
No. Absolutely not. If by saving it is meant that throngs will now attend, they will not. June 15, 1968, the following Saturday when I went out to Belmont again there was a crowd. A sizable crowd, maybe 30,000 - 35,000 people. Not as many as there were for the Belmont the week before, but a crowd.
The Saturday of the 1968 Belmont, the LIRR trains ran on time. The rail connection was newly built as well. The fact that a rail connection existed at all was due to August Belmont's (read railroad millionaire) desire to get there by his own rail car. There were seats available if you got there early enough and put your newspaper down and claimed it, somewhat like a beach blanket. That spot is yours. The seat code was generally honored by all. As often as we would go, I took to keeping a length of masking tape on a pencil, so that we could securely anchor the paper to the seat. I recently found that pencil and the very dried up masking tape. It's going in my own racing museum.
There was no Ticketmaster. And there certainly were no automated ticket machines that allowed you to place a bet. On Sunday, May 24, 2015 my friend and I were greeted to absolutely no one on the third floor who could sell you a ticket in person, cash a ticket, or even sell you a vouched to buy to use in an automated betting machine. You had to go to the second floor for the more human touch.
I am really not a Luddite, but the diminished attendance means less staff as well. In every mutuel bay, on what I still call the Sellers side, there were video screens popped up, like all those people who go to meetings with their laptops yawning open. When I fully absorbed the staffless windows I was reminded of the Andy Griffith movie 'No Time for Sergeants' when bumpkin Andy gets the latrine so spotless that me manages to press his foot down and have all the latrine seats pop up and salute the sergeant who was coming in to inspect the punishment duty he gave buck private Andy.
Abraham Lincoln said that the good thing about the future was that it didn't come all at once. Subtract 50 years from 1968 and only World War I is over. Add 50 years to 1968 and we're three years away from 2018, running horse races in front of very few fans and brightly lit betting machines.
The Triple Crown attendance and Saratoga are examples of Brigadoon. The crowds appear for a while, then go back to their homes and stay there. In Saratoga's case they do show up in good numbers for the now 40 day meet, a jewel of a meet that I have now taken in for the last 20 consecutive years.
Saratoga is racing tradition. The town boasts no professional sport other than thoroughbred racing. The interest is multi-generational. Red Smith so accurately put it that when you go down Union Avenue you go back 100 years. And it is still true.
In fact, the trees along Union Avenue have grown so much that I encountered an elderly tourist couple a few years ago that was walking toward me, somewhere between the Racing Hall of Fame and Nelson Avenue, that in frustration asked me where the track was. It is barely visible, which makes it even more Brigadoon like.
Is racing dead? Absolutely not. It has shifted, like anything else over time. Women don't use Calumet baking powder in the kitchen like they used to, and a lot of men don't wear suits to work in offices. But racing is there. I recently read a number which absolutely floored me. In 2014, The New York Racing Association took in $2.17 billion bet on its races, but only $374 million came from on-track wagering. Even given $374 million and a few warm bodies, someone is using those automated machines.
We've seen teams win championships and then quickly don caps that signify their clinching victories. Obviously, the caps and shirts, the whatever, were made in the hopes of winning. If you do win, get that marketing merchandise out there fast.
Thirty-seven years and now a Triple Crown. Why correct the spelling of the horse's name now? As you can see by the photo above, taken by Michelle MacDonald, the blanket covering American Pharoah is embroidered out to recognize the three victories and correct the second part of the horse's name to Pharaoh. No.
Don't change a damn thing.
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