The Cosmic Arbiter has a troubling sense of humor, made manifest in the quirky manipulation of his universe, a neighborhood, alas, in which most of us are required to live. His dictates often seem cruel by human standards, but to the C.A. it’s all just part of the game wryly administered by his schizophrenic charge d’affaires, General Kismet, who has a large neon sign behind his desk which shouts “OOPS!”
How else to explain the maddening unfairness of lives where the best laid plans of noble mice and men often go awry while the antics of pure fools bear undeserved fruit? Maybe they do it to drive us crazy. Have you ever noticed how a major league baseball team can suddenly go on a fifteen-game winning streak where all their pitchers become instantly untouchable, game-winning hits fall just inside the foul-line and a sudden rainstorm appears out of cloudless skies to wash out a potentially losing effort after four innings? Then, just as you’re certain the gods are unaccountably with you, a loss arrives, then another and perhaps ten more. It’s the Cosmic Arbiter out for some laughs with his scurrilous sidekick, Fate.
Horseracing is a microcosm of life, offering the same highs, perhaps a little more ornamented, and similar lows, perhaps a tad deeper. That people feel comfortable gambling on this business is a testament to human optimism. And speaking of optimism, how about the perpetrators of this sport—the people who raise and race these animals in the face of almost certain disaster? In the year 2012, the North American foal crop was roughly 23,000. More than half of these will never win a race. Most of the others will bang around in claiming competition for the bulk of their careers, costing their owners more than they win. Thoroughbred horses, for the most part, are raced by incurable optimists who survive by the skin of their teeth (if they survive at all) and by wealthy sportsmen who have made their money in some other industry. Those who profit most in the thoroughbred business are the farms who market young horses in public sales and the trainers who prepare them for the racetrack, all the while hoping their charges hold up long enough to turn a dollar. So much can go wrong with these fragile creatures it’s a wonder so many of them make it to the races at all. “Racehorses are like fruit,” says Jimmy Hatchett, a trainer from Lexington. “The longer they’re around, the worse things get.”
Retelling The Preakness
One of the aspects most emphasized in Flying Pie literature on horseracing is its unpredictability, the thousand things which can happen to skew a result. Last Saturday’s Preakness Stakes at Pimlico provides further illustration. The best horse, the heavily-favored American Pharoah, drew the troublesome inside position, a veritable house of horrors from which no Preakness winner has emerged in 21 years. Jockey Victor Espinoza was prepared to sit back behind the leaders, ride the rail and wait for a late opening. Then, a funny thing happened on the way to the starting gate: it rained torrents, driving frilled racegoers under the grandstands; rained so hard it forced hardened infield drunkards into protective tents while television viewers began to wonder if the race would happen at all. Now, a crafty smile crept onto Espinoza’s soggy countenance. He recalled the sloppy Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn, where Pharoah had kicked free from the start, besting the field by 6 1/4 lengths in a cakewalk. If, according to the original plan, he kept his horse back at the start of the Preakness, mud would be flying in American Pharoah’s face for the better part of the race, a poor option. Espinoza decided to go for the lead right out of the gate, knowing the speedy Mr. Z. (ironically, the possession of American Pharoah’s owner until just before the race when he was sold to Calumet Farm) would be vying for the same spot. An early speed duel could compromise the favorite, leaving the closers to pick up the pieces. But the Kentucky Derby winner was fast out of the gate, surprisingly fast, and Mr. Z was relegated to second, first a length behind, then two, and eventually somewhere south of Peoria. Meanwhile, Dortmund, expected to contend, was fishtailing around the track in third place and the rest of the field was inquiring of one another who dropped that bag of marbles on the racetrack.
The worst luck of all was with Firing Line, who, in the pre-race figuring, represented the greatest threat to American Pharoah. This is what his chart said when all was said and done: “FIRING LINE stumbled and splayed his front legs leaving the starting gate, was four deep the first turn, circled the far turn three wide and was eased through the stretch.”
There you go. One minute, you’ve got a horse who ran his eyeballs out in the Kentucky Derby, a huge contender for the Woodlawn Vase given to the Preakness winner, a victory of inestimable value both financially and prestigiously. The next minute, you’ve got bupkus. The biggest splash Firing Line made was just after the gates opened when he almost sat down on the track. All because a little rainstorm couldn’t wait another 20 minutes to show up. Meanwhile, back at the winner’s circle came a-prancin’ and a-dancin’, my noble Stewball, otherwise known as American Pharoah, master of good fortune, blessed by Kismet and a smart jockey. Let’s hope his luck holds one more time. The Belmont Stakes, final gem of the Triple Crown is on the horizon three weeks hence and however talented, no horse unordained by the Fates can prevail. The Cosmic Arbiter rambles through his ample lair, tugging at a waterfall of snowy chin hairs. “To be or not to be?” he laughs his imperious chortle. “THAT is the question!”
And on Earth, Bob Baffert, possible trainer of the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, looks to the skies and shudders.
Belmont Challenger Materiality
The Spoilers Await
So the average sports fan sits back, rumples his newspaper and surveys the wreckage of the last two classic races, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. Well, he decides, it’s obvious: there’s nobody left to spoil the ending. American Pharoah, barring a late injury or exhaustion, will win the Triple Crown. Who can stop him?
Who, indeed? He has trounced all the contenders. He has relegated the weather to non-factor status. He has the look of a horse who can manage the extra distance of the Belmont. Hey, Dad, are we there yet? Not quite, Johnny, there are a couple more hills to climb.
Let’s take a look at Tale of Verve, who finished second in the Preakness. After five undistinguished starts, he was still a maiden, unable to win even at New Orleans’ Fair Grounds. Then, trainer Dallas Stewart stretched him out in a rare mile-and-three-sixteenths maiden marathon at Keeneland and he bested five other camels under ace rider Joel Rosario. Now, Dallas Stewart has never been considered a dummy. He probably looked at the short Preakness field, realized they paid $90,000 to the fourth-place horse in an eight-horse race and decided to try his colt again, going a distance at which he had just been successful. Tale of Verve (at 28-1) started out last, fell back 17 1/2 lengths behind American Pharoah and made up ten of them in the last half of the race, finishing a non-threatening second. They pay $300,000 for that. Can he come closer yet when they stretch out to 1 1/2 miles in New York? Closer, maybe. Incidences when horses running in back of the pack sweep by the field to win the Belmont are few.
If you’re looking for a live wire, you might want to check out trainer Todd Pletcher’s barn. The very fast Materiality, who prefers to run on or near the lead, left the Derby gate a step slow from his poor inside post position and was swallowed up by the horde. Then, around the far turn, the colt was shuffled back almost to last before showing his character with a strong late run to finish a good sixth. Pletcher held him out of the Preakness, which looked like a promising opportunity, perhaps because of the short two-week turnback. Materiality should be fresh and ready to go. The early lead should be his if he wants it.
Carpe Diem ran an undistinguished tenth in Louisville while also skipping the Preakness. In the Derby, he was stuck in the two hole next to Materiality, not a garden spot in any twenty-horse race, and ran well early before flattening out.
Pletcher may also run Madefromlucky, winner of the Peter Pan Stakes over stablemate Two Weeks Off. Peter Pan winners have had a good success record in the Belmont. Still under consideration for the race is Kiaran McLaughlin-trained Frosted, a little rank in the Derby when taken back just out of the gate and moved to the outside, falling back to fourteenth, and roaring up the stretch to be fourth, beaten only three lengths. There’ll be others, but nobody important we can think of. The combination of Materiality up front and Frosted coming from behind is imposing. Expect American Pharoah to sit closer to the lead off a slower pace, make his move before the eighth pole, engaging Materiality down the stretch. If he puts that one away, a look over the shoulder might be propitious….somebody should be coming. We hope so. The Cosmic Arbiter never intended it to be easy.
In Unicoi, That’s How Conditions Are
We actually left Fairfield for a few days earlier this month, a miracle considering the predilections of that intractable homebody, Siobhan. See, Kathleen Ellison, her niece, was graduating from medical school at someplace called East Tennesee State University in lovely Johnson City and Siobhan is very respectful of such accomplishments, realizing the effort required. It is not like someone is receiving high acknowledgement for muffin making or dining room arrangement or lubricating tractors, not that there is anything wrong with that. It’s just that there is great determination involved, self-sacrifice and endless study. Not everyone can do it. But Kathleen, over the years, has proven she can do about any damn thing she wants, which includes being a Gator fan in Tennessee, an occupation requiring great courage and exceptional peripheral vision.
We flew out of Gainesville this time, despite the greater cost, for comfort’s sake, Siobhan wishing to eschew the two-hour drive home from the Orlando airport at the end of a long day. I’m always suspicious about the Gainesville airport because, in the past, it has been one of those notorious depots where the flights are often cancelled because of “mechanical problems.” In air service parlance, that means “not enough customers.” This is particularly unhappy on return trips, where one is left with the choice of spending the night in Atlanta or renting a vehicle for the exciting five-hour trip home. Surprisingly, there were lots of customers despite the early departure time (7:40 a.m.) so the place has obviously risen in popularity. The best thing about airports like Gainesville, of course, is the short amount of time you have to spend there. After all, what can you do in an airport? After you have spent the six minutes it takes to read USA Today, it’s all downhill. I bought a giant muffin which ordinarily takes fourteen hours to ingest and ate it in ten minutes. That was both the high and low point of my stay.
Eventually, we arrived in Johnson City at the fabulous Tri-Cities airport, which is actually bigger than the one in Gainesville. Oh—you’re wondering what the other two cities are? That would be Kingsport and Bristol, home of the world-famous Bristol Motor Speedway, which, I believe, is about a half-mile track, which means the drivers are always on a turn. We went to see it. Let me tell you—the place is BIG. 160,000 seats, or so they say. There’s a trailer outside advertising the Tennessee-Virginia Tech football game in 2016, which could be sold out. If so, the attendance will eclipse the current record by FIFTY goddam thousand. About Kingsport—I’ve got nuthin’.
While we were in Tennessee, we got to spend a night at the exceptional country estate of Internet Hero Court Lewis in Unicoi. He even arranged a marvelous eight-person dinner with clever and interesting people instead of the usual crowd. Court’s wife, Margaret, is a horse owner and has plenty of room for the critters, with paddocks descending from the front of her house to the depths below. The Unicoi area is green and hilly, filled with attractive neighborhoods. Snuffy Smith does not live there and neither does Li’l Abner.
On our way to the airport, Court and Margaret took us to the Johnson City Country Club for lunch. In keeping with the Killeen/Ellison tradition, Siobhan managed to dump her wallet in the parking lot. Cumulatively, this makes the second time in three years we have pulled this trick. I think we need metal wallets so that when they hit the ground we might get a clue they are leaving. Anyway, I think the two of us are alertly monitored by St. Bridget of the Moors, patron saint of wallet fumblers. Before we even realized the thing was lost, the Pro Shop manager from the golf course walked in, marched up to Siobhan (who he recognized from her driver’s license photo) and plopped it on the table, intact. That’s a lucky two-for-two for our side. Sooner or later, we’re going to make this mistake in downtown Gooberville and the poor thing will never be heard from again. Discouraging as it is to lose one’s wallet in regards to cash and credit cards, it’s even worse at the airport. Nobody says, “Well, ha ha, Miss Ellison, it happens to the best of us—you just march right on that plane with no ID, don’t you worry one bit!” We’d be driving home. It’s 11 1/2 motoring hours. I checked.
Pictures below of the Lewis Estate & Margaret. And no, they’re not especially looking to entertain any more house guests.
That’s all, folks….
