The abruptly announced news Friday that I’ll Have Another had a sore leg and wouldn’t attempt to win horse racing’s Triple Crown turned Saturday’s Belmont Stakes into a more ordinary event.
It was still fun seeing 85-thousand people fill the old main plant in Elmont, NY to cheer the runners who contested thirteen races on the card. But it would have been extraordinary seeing Another have a chance at another, and the first Crown since 1978. Who knows how it would have turned out had Another run in good health. One could guess that he would have fared well against the eventual Belmont winner Union Rags (pictured above on the rail – just before slipping through a hole left by rival Paynter w/tourquoise saddlecloth).
The injury that prompted I’ll Have Another’s trainer Doug O’Neill and owner Paul Reddam to retire the colt isn’t permanently debilitating. The timing of it was bad, of course, but O’Neill’s methodical effort to make things comfortable for the horse during the crown run was evident from the trainer’s strategy to get Another settled into barns at Pimlico and Belmont as early as practical.
The care and preparation for Another by the O’Neill team appeared to be top-notch, but two big racing efforts in five weeks can reveal wear and tear on a racehorse at any time. In this case, a leg tendon flared up after successive routine morning jogs. It happens. In horse racing, it happens a lot.
If we ever do end up getting a triple crown winner after such a long drought, it’ll be a three-year-old thoroughbred that combines a freakish combination of sturdiness, stamina and speed. The fact that we’ve come tantalizingly close to a crown with some frequency over the last fifteen years gives one hope it’ll happen eventually. Talk of changing the crown’s format is fine but it’ll cease to be a Triple Crown if and when the spacing between races, field size maximums or race distances are altered to make it easier.
The excitement of I’ll Have Another’s three week stay in New York to prepare for the crown coincided with a swirl of tumult around the state’s long and storied stewardship of a great sport in decline. An infusion of slot machine cash from the new casino at Aqueduct was believed to be a savior of sorts but has instead produced a flurry of posturing and scapegoating by a state government bureaucracy that now seems bent on imposing wide control over the business of New York’s three thoroughbred facilities. Governor Cuomo has run out New York’s existing oversight entity to make way for political appointees who likely will consider opportunities to divert an even greater cut of slots cash away from racing. Short-term at least, New York racing oversight and administration is in disarray. There was the ham-handed implementation of a “detention barn” before the Belmont Stakes that was roundly criticized by those with horses in the race. A much-publicized giveaway of foam insulators for beer cans was scrapped on the day of the promotion Friday when NYRA said it had failed to receive the product in time. And then, when I’ll Have Another scratched from the race, there was an announcement from NYRA that the same injured horse would be asked to lead the Belmont Stakes post parade as some sort of consolation for the fans who wanted to see him. To deflect criticism of this cockamamie idea, NYRA asked the respected track vet Larry Bramlage to issue a statement asserting Another faced no risk of further tendon damage from participating in the ceremonial duties. When it finally dawned on NYRA that trotting I’ll Have Another out to the racetrack before a crowd that included people already confused by what happened a day earlier, the idea was scrapped. Instead, Another was taken out of his barn during Saturday afternoon’s hoopla and did a few laps in the paddock. He jets back to his home base in California this week.
Perhaps because Belmont expected 100-thousand people to show up Saturday (until Friday’s withdrawal by Another), the facility was well-prepared for the 85-thousand who ended up turning out. The line for the women’s washroom was the biggest complaint I heard. It’s ridiculous this remains an annual problem but making a bet and getting a refreshment wasn’t a problem.
It was $10 for a 16-ounce can of Budweiser. That’s serious gouging by NYRA but at least you could get another when you told yourself that I’ll Have Another.
I played the pick four and got knocked out in leg two. I deviated from my usual strategy of spreading as deep as possible, opting instead to limit combinations so that I could multiply the $1 payoff by three should Union Rags win (twice if Dullhan won). The fast Kentucky Derby pace-setter Trinniberg foiled my play when he wired a field of ten in the grade two Woody Stephens. My decision to not include Trinniberg in the wager had become a source of lengthy consideration but I ultimately decided that his Derby effort five weeks earlier would take the starch out of him in this spot. I should have let his two quick post-Derby workouts guide my decision, I guess. Oh well.
The failure of my sizable pick four wager left me with no action on the Belmont Stakes and another losing day at the race track.
We bolted pretty quick after Rags crossed the wire and had a relaxing round of drinks and slow-paced dinner at Gwynnett St. in Brooklyn. I had the pike topped with milkweed, ferns and spruce. It was solidly prepared but a bit on the sparse side.