SMARTY BE BARKER:

Fast Track to Oblivion: Though the Triple Crown is nearly impossible to win, changing its terms would diminish horse racing's only magic moment. (JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN, 5/15/04, NY Times)

Think about baseball's so-called perfect game, in which one pitcher holds the mound for his team through all nine innings without allowing a single batter on base. It's an all but impossible feat, in large part because tremendous skill is only the first of the elements that have to be in place for it to happen. There's toughness. And nerve. Versatility, too: a pitcher's performance has to be maintained at the highest level even as the game moves through different phases, as his body changes in response to the strain, as the opposing team tries different strategies to unseat him. And once all these are in place, a final requirement remains: huge amounts of luck.

Now imagine a sport in which an accomplishment roughly analogous to the perfect game was the central point around which the whole season revolved, the climax not just of one athlete's ability but of each year's competitive cycle. Imagine, in other words, if the perfect game were to assume the place of the World Series in terms of importance and public attention. And should it ever be the case that, in a given year, no pitcher could pull it off (this would in fact almost always be the case), well . . . get over it. And please come back next season.

Such a sport exists. It's American thoroughbred racing. And thoroughbred racing's version of pitching the perfect game is to win the Triple Crown. [...]

This is a bit of a problem for the sport, because last year, when Funny Cide failed to win the Belmont Stakes after having taken the Derby and the Preakness, we entered a record Triple Crown drought. The last horse to pull it off was Affirmed, in 1978. That makes 26 years and counting. When the immortal Secretariat won, in 1973, it had been 25 years since Citation won in 1948, and fans were wondering then if we'd ever see another one. Suddenly, there came the "decade of champions," as the 1970's are known in racing circles — after Secretariat in '73, it was Seattle Slew in '77, then Affirmed in '78. And then, no less suddenly, the stream of champions dried up. More than a quarter-century later, we're still waiting for rain.

This year's hope is Smarty Jones, the Pennsylvania-bred colt who won the Derby two weeks ago and goes into the Preakness today as the favorite. If he wins this afternoon (a bet, of course, but a smart one), only the Belmont Stakes in June will stand between his owners and the Triple Crown. All the relevant statistics argue that he has a decent shot. He's not an especially fast horse, but he seems to do what it takes to win, over and over. Amid the unfamiliar competition that he'll face today, or that he might face two weeks later at the Belmont, no obvious threats pop out.

Why, then, will Smarty Jones almost certainly not win the Triple Crown?

Triple Crown season always brings to mind one of the most moving obituaries ever written. For those who remember him the first two paragraphs will make your scalp tingle.

MORE:
Forecast good for Smarty Jones (JIM O'DONNELL, 5/15/04, Chicago Sun-Times)

The weather outside may be frightful for the 129th running of the Preakness Stakes this afternoon. But it may also prove to be happily reminiscent for the ascending new people's champion of thoroughbred racing.

Smarty Jones, the Philadelphia-based commoner who would be king, might once again face rain and thunder as he tries to annex the second jewel of racing's Triple Crown in the $1 million Preakness.

Two weeks ago at Churchill Downs, the 3-year-old son of Elusive Quality overcame a pre-race deluge and the hot-footed front-end speed of Lion Heart to win the Kentucky Derby on a sloppy surface. Both of his last victories -- in the Kentucky Derby and the Arkansas Derby -- have come on ''off'' tracks.

Baltimore-area weather forecasters are predicting the same sort of framing for the Preakness. They are listing a 60 percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms for the neighborhood around Pimlico Race Course with humid conditions and a high temperature in the mid-80s expected.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 15, 2004 9:01 AM