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Out of Left Field |
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Rooting Against A Triple Crown |
 WAR EMBLEM ON A ROLL? |
Hate rooting for the rich?
Here are some alternatives
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
There’s a good deal more excitement in horse racing
this week because there is the possibility of a Triple Crown
winner. Pardon me, though, if I don’t join the crowd rooting
for the first triple since Affirmed in 1978 became the eleventh
horse to achieve that difficult feat.
I have nothing against the horse, War Emblem, who has won the
Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and goes for the triple by winning
the 134th Belmont Stakes Saturday, but….Call me a chauvinist
or a soupuss but I just am not thrilled by the War Emblem story.
First, he was bought for almost a million dollars only a month
before the Derby by the Saudi Arabian, Prince Ahmed bin Salman.
I’d like to think the people who own a horse have had him
since he was a pup, got to bring him along, celebrated his victories,
suffered his defeats.
Much of the popularity of the book about Seabiscuit stems from
the story of the dedication to the horse by the people close
to him. With War Emblem, it was little more than a poobah looking
to get into the Derby and putting up the cash when he found a
horse that appeared to have some talent. This is strictly a riches-to-riches
story.
Nor in the wake of 9-11 is this a time to be delighted by a Saudi
Arabian having such good fortune. The prince may be a good guy--he
has said the politic thing about the world situation (“I
am a businessman not a politician”)--but I would just as
soon somebody other than a moneybags man from a moneybags country
enjoy this good fortune.
The Kentucky Derby was the worst one in my memory. Not only did
you have the filthy rich people winning it but the race was a
yawner. War Emblem got out in front with Proud Citizen second
and they ran like that the whole way around, with nobody challenging
them. A race without a come-from-behind horse challenging the
leaders is strictly dullsville.
All right Mr. Left Field curmudgeon, if you are rooting against
the Triple Crown challenger, who do you want to win?
I’m glad you asked. I have two potentials who would gladden
me no end.
The first has the Prince and the Pauper angle. This would be
Magic Weisner, the 45-1 longshot who finished with a rush in
the Preakness and may well have won had the race been another
50 yards.
Magic Weisner is owned and trained by Nancy Alberts, a woman
in her 50s who has been a groom and trainer with cheap horses
most of her life. One observer at the Preakness said, “She
looked like some Tobacco Road character, coming to the track
in a T-shirt and a not very new one at that.”
Magic’s story began because Jazema, her mother, [dam in
racetrack parlance] was such a broken down critter that the owner
gave her to Alberts for a dollar. At some point Alberts noted
that Jazema seemed to have a thing for the male horse in the
next stall, and mated her to Ameri Valley, the union producing
Magic Weisner.
Magic develped a serious illness at three months. A veterinarian
named Wisner came in to save her. When Alberts submitted an official
name for her horse she wanted to honor the vet but mispelled
his name. So it became Magic Weisner rather than Wisner.
Magic was gelded along the way. He has no value in stud. Yet
somebody reportedly offered the lady a million dollars for him.
She turned it down. “That didn’t make sense,”
a racetrack insider said, “because the horse doesn’t
figure to win a million in races.” He discounts Magic’s
chances in the Belmont as do others. Alberts herself was disinclined
to run in the Belmont saying she could find softer spots at her
Maryland tracks. She changed her mind, probably goosed by the
Belmont people and others who understand what a great Prince
and the Pauper angle she brings to the race in trying to knock
off Prince bin Salman’s prize.
Come on, Magic, say I.
My saver, as they say at the track, is Puzzlement. That’s
because he is trained by Allen Jerkens, a longtime trainer in
New York, a big favorite here. He is known as the giant killer
because in his time he has pulled off some of racing’s biggest
upsets. Great horses upset by Jerkens' horses include Kelso (three
times) Secretariat (twice) and Buckpasser.
For all Jerkens’ eminence--he has been voted into racing’s
Hall of Fame--he has never won a Triple Crown race. He has three
out-of-the-money finishers in the Derby and the best of his three
Belmont Stakes runners was a fourth by Best of Luck in 1999.
Jerkens, 73, is a hard-working bloke, burly, deceivingly gruff
at first meeting, modest to a fault. He is popular with the New
York fans, having risen from the ranks of claiming horses a long
time ago. Puzzlement figures to be one of the longshots in the
race and a victory by him beating War Emblem would probably be
regarded as Jerkens' greatest upset of all. Nobody would be more
delighted by a Jerkens victory here than the trainers in New
York who have respected and admired him while competing against
him for decades.
A Triple
Crown Tidbit
There have been 11 Triple Crown winners. But I came up with the
oddity that one horse who might have been a Triple Crown winner
never had the chance because there was a time when the Kentucky
Derby and the Preakness were run on the same day. On May 13,
1922, Pillory won the Preakness, the same afternoon Morvich was
winning the Kentucky Derby. Pillory then went on to win the Belmont
Stakes. In essence he missed a chance at Triple Crown recognition
because he couldn’t run in the Derby.
© 2002 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©
2001 by Jim Hummel.
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