Month: June 2018

The Countdown Is On!

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Today, Churchill Downs unveiled its logo for the 145th Kentucky Derby, to be run May 4, 2019. Even though Sir Barton won the 45th Kentucky Derby on May 10th, the 145th Run for the Roses marks the 100th anniversary of the first Triple Crown winner taking his first steps toward history.

If you look on the bottom left of the front page for this blog, you will see a countdown of our own. For now, I am counting down to the Kentucky Derby, BUT, as soon as I have an official publication date for Sir Barton and the Making of the Triple Crown, I will update to help us count the days, weeks, and months until Sir Barton’s full story is available at your local bookseller.

Until then, keep checking in for news and other fun activities as we get closer to the 100th anniversary of the first Triple Crown!

From One to Thirteen in Ninety-Nine Years

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sir_barton_silksNinety-nine years ago, a chestnut colt with a wide white blaze whipped across the finish line at Belmont Park, followed by only two others. Johnny Loftus might have waved his whip in celebration as his mount galloped out, finally trotting over to the judge’s stand to raucous waves of applause from the crowd of 25,000 straining to see the new champion. As Sir Barton received pats of congrats, as Commander Ross stood in the winner’s circle to receive the Belmont’s silver platter, horse racing was forever changed.

Continue reading “From One to Thirteen in Ninety-Nine Years” →

Moments Like This

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First and foremost, I am a fan of horse racing and a few other sports, including tennis. I love the championship moment, that instant when it’s game, set, and match and the player collapses on the court in elation. I love Larry Collmus’s call of the 2015 Belmont Stakes, when, finally, American Pharoah was the ONE. I love those moments because, in an instant, life smiles on the player, the horse, the people who love them, and those watching it all play out. Those are moments that overshadow the dark ones in their lives and ours as well.

Those moments of triumph make getting up each morning and working toward a goal worth all of the hard work, the long hours, the absolute commitment. Today, we may see yet another of those moments. I have been around long enough to have seen my share of almosts: Sunday Silence, Silver Charm, Real Quiet, Charismatic, War Emblem, Funny Cide, Smarty Jones, Big Brown, I’ll Have Another, California Chrome. Finally, though, I saw greatness incarnate when AP wowed us at Big Sandy. I cried in elation for hours afterward. I hope today that I get to do the same, that we will see Justify echo what American Pharoah did three years ago and bring us all to another one of those moments, the kind that you remember where you were and what you were doing when it happened.

He has done the improbable so far: broken the curse of Apollo in a driving rain, won the Preakness on a swamp track, and now come to New York, to Belmont, on the precipice of immortality. All that stands between him and that elite fraternity is 12 furlongs and nine other horses. I hope that I will need to revise my manuscript to reflect the addition of another name to this pantheon of greatness.

Good luck, Justify! Good luck to you and Mike Smith and Bob Baffert and all of the smiling faces behind you! We can’t wait to see you fly!

Inspiring the Chase, Part IV

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(This blog post is the fourth and last in a series of four, profiling the first horse to traverse what we now know as the Triple Crown trail. In 1918, War Cloud started in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes for the first time, inspiring Sir Barton’s run in all three the following year. Read part one here, part two here, and part three here.)

After the muck of Churchill Downs and the crowded field of Pimlico, owner A.K. Macomber and trainer Walter Jennings sent War Cloud northward, to New York City and the ivy-covered walls of Belmont Park. The spring meet started on May 27th, and Macomber moved his stable into Gotham for the triumvirate of Jamaica, Belmont, and Aqueduct meets. For his three-year-olds, the next target became the Withers Stakes on June 1st. War Cloud, on seventeen days of rest, went to the post for the one-mile stake with his stablemate, Motor Cop.

He had started the journey as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby on May 11th and then second choice at Pimlico, but, in the Withers, he failed to run to his status as one of the best of his age. War Cloud, again with Johnny Loftus in the saddle, parlayed his poor start into an even poorer performance, finishing in seventh. Just ahead of him was Willis Sharpe Kilmer’s Sun Briar, Exterminator’s stablemate and the colt that Kilmer had assumed would be his Derby horse until he wasn’t. Their poor showing meant that the three-year-old division was now wide open, with Motor Cop, Escoba (second in the Derby), and others toward the top of the list. Only a win in race like the Belmont Stakes could send War Cloud back to the front of the line.

Continue reading “Inspiring the Chase, Part IV” →