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- alz
- Larry Walker
Offline - Registered: 9/23/2010
- Posts: 2,396
Re: Triple crowns are hard to win
Yes, I've found myself rooting for many of the previous horses. Barbaro (heart breaking), Funny Cide, Smarty Jones.... I was beginning to think I'd never see it. The last time it happened I think I was 3.
Great job to American Pharoah.
- artie_fufkin
- Administrator
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- From: God's Little Acre
- Registered: 9/08/2010
- Posts: 22,429
Re: Triple crowns are hard to win
To me there's Secretariat and then every other horse that has ever run a race. I still get chills watching the replay of the Belmont when the track announcer says "He's moving like a TREMENDOUS MACHINE ..."
- alz
- Larry Walker
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- Registered: 9/23/2010
- Posts: 2,396
Re: Triple crowns are hard to win
artie_fufkin wrote:
To me there's Secretariat and then every other horse that has ever run a race. I still get chills watching the replay of the Belmont when the track announcer says "He's moving like a TREMENDOUS MACHINE ..."
Might be a shade unfair there Artie. Secretariat was the greatest horse to ever race. Everything I'm seeing, makes American Pharoah the second best horse to ever race. At least until they made Belmont 12 furlongs in the 20s.
Besides, after surviving that tragedy of a track and conditions at the Preakness. I was impressed. That was some serious shit they made those horses run in.
He's a cool #2 ever in my book, didn't beat Secretariat, but if that's the case for loving a racehorse, we'll possibly never love another.
- artie_fufkin
- Administrator
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- From: God's Little Acre
- Registered: 9/08/2010
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Re: Triple crowns are hard to win
I haven't really followed horse racing since 1973. It was a different time in that there were fewer entertainment options, but Secretariat transcended the activity. There's probably some poetic license, but the movie with Diane Lane pretty much gets it right in how the horse captivated the country. Secretariat was on the cover of Time and Newsweek in the same week. That's unlikely to happen again.
Last edited by artie_fufkin (6/09/2015 7:07 pm)
- alz
- Larry Walker
Offline
- Registered: 9/23/2010
- Posts: 2,396
Re: Triple crowns are hard to win
I haven't really followed horse racing since 1973. It was a different time in that there were fewer entertainment options, but Secretariat transcended the activity. There's probably some poetic license, but the movie with Diane Lane pretty much gets it right in how the horse captivated the country. Secretariat was on the cover of Time and Newsweek in the same week. That's unlikely to happen again.
Secretariat was more than special. In a world of limited entertainment options, a 25 year absense of a triple crown champion, and him setting world record marks at the first two legs of the triple crown (although the preakness was changed due to a clock issue), his race at the Belmont was huge even before it started. Typically you have lead horses, mid horses, and closers. Secretariat seemed to be a 1 in a million horse that could run from anywhere and win decisively. I read somewhere that not only were his time and 31 length margins of victory just absurd and unheard of, but he also had the very unique distinction of running each quarter mile of that race faster than the last. There's no way to even fathom that...