Bound for Glory?

The last thing we would want to do is put a damper on the Belmont Stakes, where California Chrome is going to make his run for the Triple Crown. By God he’s a beautiful horse, particularly pictured in full profile. The newspaper in us, though, urges caution. Or at least a careful look at the replay available on the World Wide Web of the Coast bumper coming into home stretch of last month’s 140th running of the Kentucky Derby.Watching on this Youtube video, one can feature the scrum as the steeds haul around the final turn and into the race for the finish line. This is at the 1:40 mark in video. That is when the chromium colt makes his move, fairly leaping to the fore — until that final furlong. The drama we had our eye on, aside from the confounded traffic jam behind California Chrome, was Commanding Curve. Mark how he is gaining on the California as they hurtle toward the finish.Another quarter mile, we’ll warrant, and Curve would have carved him. Commanding Curve wasn’t at Pimlico, but it looked to us like Ride on Curlin was gaining on Chrome at the Preakness line. He might have had him, too, had he another 5/16ths of a mile. So both Curlin and Curve ought to be watched in the Belmont, which, at a mile and a half, is the longest and most heart-breaking leg of the Crown. Not predicting. Just saying.And just to put it all in perspective, take another look at what happened 41 years ago, when what has been called the greatest multicellular non-human-being that ever existed ran the Belmont. We’ve waxed on this before, but this is a moment to watch again, as the race is called by Charles David “Chic” Anderson on June 9, 1973. There were only five steeds on the track, and, we wrote a while back, it really boiled down to a match race between Secretariat and an organism that, had it not been running next to Secretariat, would have been called a horse. It was named Sham.On the video, one can see Sham and Secretariat running more or less along aside each other and well ahead of the other horses until they’re clattering down the back stretch. At that point, the camera is following them by panning across the whole track and infield. Near the half way point they come to a moment when they are obscured by a flag. Going in, it seemed Sham still had a chance. Out from behind the flag, and history has taken over.It’s like some surreal spirit has come down onto the track as Secretariat starts to pull away. “It looks like he’s opening,” Anderson says. “The lead is increasing.” He announces Secretariat is three lengths in front but immediately says “make it three and a half.” Then the famous call:“They’re on the turn . . . Secretariat is blazing along, the first three quarters of a mile in one oh nine and four fifths . . . Secretariat is WI-dening now . . . he is moving like a tree-MEN-dous machine . . . Secretariat by 12 . . . Secretariat by 14 lengths on the turn . . . Secretariat is all alone . . . He’s out there almost a sixteenth of a mile away from the rest of the horses. Secretariat is in a position that he’s impossible to catch . . . He’s into the stretch. . . . Secretariat leads the field by 18 lengths . . . They’re in the stretch. . . . Secretariat has opened a 22-length lead. He . . . is . . . going . . . to . . . be . . . the . . . Triple . . . Crown . . . Winner. . . . Here comes Secretariat to the wire, an unbelievable, an amazing performance, he hits the finish 25 lengths in front.”It was, it turns out, 31 lengths.The thing they say about Sectetariat is that it was his heart. How else could one explain the tabulation we saw on the Web that if Secretariat had been racing Man o’ War at a mile and a half, Secretariat would have beaten that mighty nag by 24 lengths. What a heart that horse had. It may have been William Nack who reported that the veterinarian who performed the necropsy on Secretariat, Dr. Thomas Swerczek, head pathologist at the University of Kentucky, did not weigh Secretariat’s heart, but the doctor has been several places quoted as saying, “We just stood there in stunned silence.” We mention all this not to put a damper on the Belmont tomorrow — we’re rooting for Chrome — but to mark the glory for which Coast colt will be running.

Bound for Glory?

Bound for Glory?

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