“When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.”---Tuli Kupferberg
Benjamin Franklin long ago told us that nothing in this world was certain except death and taxes. But that was then and this is now. We’ve added a few sure things. It is certain that the Boston Red Sox will eternally have mediocre relief pitching. It is certain that Roseanne will rise from the dead once every twenty years from now to infinity. It is certain that the acceptance of evolution will arrive in Kansas at approximately the same hour Hell freezes over. And now, apparently, it is inevitable that Justified will win the 143rd Preakness Stakes.
When we were kids, there were far more certainties. We would always be in St. Patrick’s schoolyard at 8:30 in the morning when the bell rang. The ice-cream man would unfailingly come tinkling down Garfield Street each Summer night after dinner. At least once a game, cherubic Paul Brooks would drop a baseball in right field. Come Lent, we would be forced to endure the mournful, Friday-afternoon-killing torture of the weary Stations of the Cross. These were the irrevocable Truths we lived by, the known quantities we dealt with. If we were looking for impulsiveness, rash behavior, a break with convention, we would have to find it elsewhere. Some things never changed. We were okay with that. Who would want to give up the stadium fireworks on the Fourth of July, what fool would pass on the Summer weekend trips to Salisbury Beach, and was there any dunce so vapid as to pass on his grandmother’s Thanksgiving dinner? They had start-from-scratch wildly aromatic homemade pies at those things, for God’s sake. If there happened to be cake, you could lick the icing bowl. Now, people eat at Denny’s.
As we got older, of course, we saw the value of change. The authorities we once thought unimpeachable sometimes had feet of clay. The rules seemed a little too rigid. Our questions brought unacceptable answers. Our heretofore infallible parents sometimes seemed to miss a beat or two. There was the opposite sex to consider. Was it really possible we might move away from home? Those guys with the gang jackets looked kind of cool.
One after another, the inalterable icons fell. The Catholic Church lost its aura of infallibility. We realized our teachers, our coaches, our city fathers had vested interests which sometimes conflicted with ours. Tommy Lane, my father’s favorite politician, was arrested for income tax evasion. Douglas MacArthur might have been a beloved war hero but he also turned out to be a colossal egomaniac. What once seemed entrenched certainties were up for reconsideration, ripe for further debate. When Pope Pius XII decided one Friday to relax the ban on the eating of meat, my conservative father jumped up and asked, Who does he think HE is?” Was nothing sacred any more? Were there no longer limits to what was possible? Then, in 1957, Jack Kerouac wrote On The Road and all bets were off.
The Dawn Of Anything Goes
If the beatniks were but a small contingent of naysaysers and poetic nonconformists, their heirs, the hippies, were a world-wide wave of revolutionaries. If they were also unrealistic idealists, their hearts were in the right place, worshiping at the altar of personal freedom, abhoring the trappings of war and man’s inhumanity to man. Many of them sought to overcome the basic pettiness and jealousies of the human condition by living in self-sufficient communes and sharing everything, including one another. It was the Era of Anything’s Possible, that brief time in the existences of most of us when “inevitable” was a foreign philosophy. The mammoth coalescing of events gave the impression of a gigantic snowball rolling down a steep hill, unstoppable, overwhelming everything in its path. The era brought out the best instincts of man, the attendant drugs aiding spectacular creativity in art and music. Even those indisposed to such a transformation were susceptible. Straightlaced conservatives, afraid of looking uncool, deigned to take a sip of the culture. Weed proliferated in unlikely places. In friendly environments like New York City movie theaters, the purest of innocents were often intoxicated by the clouds of marijuana smoke filling the air. Drugs were practically a currency of their own. We once tipped a N.Y. cabbie with a nice hunk of hash for a zippy ride through the neon caverns of Times Square. If we grew up in a world where everything was certain, we had arrived at a station where nothing was written in stone. Where we had previously glorified change, now we decided we’d like it to take a holiday. And then we learned one of the surest lessons of all: the pendulum always swings back. The most inevitable creature of all is Change.
Back To The Future
We started out when the world was smaller, when expectations were modest, when certain modes of behavior were required, when change was slow and often frowned upon. We graduated to a time at the opposite end of the spectrum where the universe was large, where hopes soared to impossible levels, where humans explored the depths of their own existence with mind-altering substances, innovative methods of living, grand aesthetic pursuits. If the Earth was not transformed into an idyllic Eden, we gained in the process. We learned from the battle. We are better prepared to contend with the demons the present has brought because we know that however impregnable their fortress may appear, sooner or later Change will come knocking at the door as it always does. And the demons will have no answers.
The Optimism Is Justified
In a small corner of the current world, a modest field of horses takes up arms against the Champion in a battle of David & Goliath proportions. The result of Saturday’s Preakness Stakes at Baltimore’s historic Pimlico Race Course, the sages tell us, is inevitable. Kentucky Derby winner Justify has scared off the bulk of his opposition, his Louisville performance suggesting greatness. But we have learned that nothing is impossible, that Fate has access to a utility belt of Batman-like proportions. A bruised heel here, a puffy ankle there, and the world is turned on its head. Who can forget the Derby frustrations of Mendelssohn and Magnum Moon, knocked from pillar to post at the outset in Louisville, losing all chance? Who doesn’t remember the last-minute scratches of past Derby champs, waylayed by a sudden twist of Fate? Justified is akin to the powerful snowball earlier mentioned, rolling downhill with impossible force, no apparent resistance on the horizon. That could well be so. Or maybe we need a better pair of glasses.
The Contenders
Before the Kentucky Derby, we predicted that whatever happened in Louisville, Justified would be better in the Preakness. The only way that could happen now is if the Derby champ was home and in bed by the time his competition hit the Preakness wire. With a mere three races under his belt, Justified tracked a scorching pace set by frontrunner Promises Fulfilled and never flagged, blasting to a convincing victory over a solid field. Trainer Bob Baffert’s colt was so impressive that Pimlico Race Course, host of the Preakness, was forced to send out a corps of headhunters to find candidates to run against him. The recruiters didn’t fare all that well.
Chad Brown’s Good Magic, second in the Derby, will return for another dance. Brown is a young man but he has been around long enough to discover that odd things happen in horseracing, that Fate is often an unkind sniper and a trainer worth his salt mustn’t be scared off by the aura of a single opponent. Perhaps Justified’s #7 gate will short-circuit and fail to open, maybe the Derby winner will wake up on Preakness morning with a touch of the gout. If that happens, the very competent Magic will be there to pick up the pieces. The wily bettor knows that young horses improve or regress with each race and a little bit of each could change the likely outcome. If not, well, the $300,000 for second place isn’t bad either.
The likelihood of any other horse winning this race is remote. Dreamers wearing rose-colored glasses and advocating for the New Guns will point out that last year’s Preakness winner, Cloud Computing, skipped the Derby and the show horse, Senior Investment, did also. Fine, but Justified did not run last year. A punter’s time would be better spent looking for a likely show horse to incorporate into his bets, in which case, Quip, by excellent classics sire Distorted Humor, is a good possibility. Quip is a versatile sort who will probably take his cue from Justified. If the latter goes to the front, which is very possible, Quip will sit. If the Derby champ unexpectedly takes back, Quip can set the pace.
D. Wayne Lukas’ Bravazo, by Awesome Again, surprised many in Kentucky with a nice 6th place finish despite traffic issues at the start and a wide ride for the balance of the race. Lukas is the consummate old pro. While he sometimes starts a horse just to remain in the picture, his charges often surprise. This one could get a piece.
Diamond King is an increasingly popular possibility, but we think his backers are reaching. John Servis is a fine trainer and savvy Javier Castellano rides, but that’s not nearly enough.
Lone Sailor, like many others, was the victim of traffic shenanigans in the Derby, but took to the rail, avoided big problems and had room to run late. He didn’t. Tenfold is wasting his time and your money. Sporting Chance, also trained by Lukas, could not win this race if all the others fell into a large hole at the quarter-pole.
The Envelope, Please….
1. Justify. Might be the next superhorse. The Travers at Saratoga in September will be a better test.
2. Good Magic. Chad Brown is an exceptional trainer and his horses often run better than expected. That said, Justified will have to run into the worst day of his life to lose.
3. Quip. Has five lifetime starts, only one of them poor, with three wins. Won the Tampa Bay Derby, second in the Arkansas Derby to Magnum Moon. Strategy will call the tune here. If his connections are satisfied with third, he can get it. If he goes for broke, which we expect, anything can happen. Anything but beating Justified, that is. The Triple Crown beckons.
That’s all, folks….
