(I was going to present this as an anti-American rant, but the anniversary weekend of the Normandy landings probably isn't the time for that, so I'll keep it fairly objective).
Steve Coburn, the owner of the beaten Belmont favourite California Chrome, didn't exactly take defeat gracefully last night. There's plenty of internet coverage of this, but the article by Zach Woosley on www.sbnation.com sets the scene, and makes the points, as well as anything.
Briefly, Coburn thinks it's not fair that horses that haven't run in the first two legs of the Triple Crown should be able to run in the Belmont and use their fresh legs to beat the exhausted ones of a horse that's already won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. To my surprise, the experienced Woosley pretty much agrees with him and, to my equal surprise, a substantial majority of the readers who left comments seem to agree with him too.
I'd be interested in views on here. Mine, for what they're worth, are:
1) the US media have, over about the last fifty years, turned three unrelated events into a "series"
which they were never meant to be.
2) these races are for three-year olds. As most of us know, you regularly find 3yos who can't tie their own shoelaces on 1st May and turn into serious racing machines by 1st August: they develop at different speeds, and you can't legislate for that.
3) I'd say the whole US Triple Crown concept is fairly ridiculous. The UK pattern race system, where a triple-crown candidate is tested at a mile in May, 12f in June and 14f in September at least allows for a decent and realistic progression. The US Triple Crown requres you to run three races at different trips in FIVE WEEKS (with the middle one at a shorter trip than the first one). My guess is that a Cecil. a Gosden or an O'Brien wouldn't even contemplate a programme like that. So, I'd say that the fault isn't in the way the Triple Crown system is regulated, it's in the fact that it exists at all. There are supplementary points worth making here about the importance of breeding economics and the fact that geldings are - quite rightly - held in less contempt in American than they are in Europe, but these waters get quite deep quite quickly.
And finally, I haven't really much to say about Steve Coburn. You've got to make big allowances for disappointment on the night which was going to be the summit of any owner's life, and maybe there's the germ of an argument for 'fairer' entry conditions. On the other hand, he's probably just another charmless American tit. In a nutshell, isn't the essence of being a champion that you beat all comers ?
Steve Coburn, the owner of the beaten Belmont favourite California Chrome, didn't exactly take defeat gracefully last night. There's plenty of internet coverage of this, but the article by Zach Woosley on www.sbnation.com sets the scene, and makes the points, as well as anything.
Briefly, Coburn thinks it's not fair that horses that haven't run in the first two legs of the Triple Crown should be able to run in the Belmont and use their fresh legs to beat the exhausted ones of a horse that's already won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. To my surprise, the experienced Woosley pretty much agrees with him and, to my equal surprise, a substantial majority of the readers who left comments seem to agree with him too.
I'd be interested in views on here. Mine, for what they're worth, are:
1) the US media have, over about the last fifty years, turned three unrelated events into a "series"
which they were never meant to be.
2) these races are for three-year olds. As most of us know, you regularly find 3yos who can't tie their own shoelaces on 1st May and turn into serious racing machines by 1st August: they develop at different speeds, and you can't legislate for that.
3) I'd say the whole US Triple Crown concept is fairly ridiculous. The UK pattern race system, where a triple-crown candidate is tested at a mile in May, 12f in June and 14f in September at least allows for a decent and realistic progression. The US Triple Crown requres you to run three races at different trips in FIVE WEEKS (with the middle one at a shorter trip than the first one). My guess is that a Cecil. a Gosden or an O'Brien wouldn't even contemplate a programme like that. So, I'd say that the fault isn't in the way the Triple Crown system is regulated, it's in the fact that it exists at all. There are supplementary points worth making here about the importance of breeding economics and the fact that geldings are - quite rightly - held in less contempt in American than they are in Europe, but these waters get quite deep quite quickly.
And finally, I haven't really much to say about Steve Coburn. You've got to make big allowances for disappointment on the night which was going to be the summit of any owner's life, and maybe there's the germ of an argument for 'fairer' entry conditions. On the other hand, he's probably just another charmless American tit. In a nutshell, isn't the essence of being a champion that you beat all comers ?
America's Triple Crown isn't really a series? I beg to differ gentlemen, it is very much a series. It may not have the illustrious pedigree of the of the august UK Triple Crown, but that should not blind us to what the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes mean to the USA, and racing in general. It's one hell of an athletic test. It may not be as well planned as the UK product, but it nevertheless holds great sway on the international scene. These races are not new. The youngest of them is the Kentucky Derby, first run in 1875. So this series is not a blow in event with little meaning. The Triple Crown Trophy was only introduced 64 years ago, but the hunt for the illusive Triple Crown had been pursued for a long time before that. It seems it may have been first mentioned as a Triple Crown in the early 1920s. And what does it take to win the Crown? A bloody good horse. Anyone remember the names War Admiral, Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed? Add to those Whirlaway, Sir Barton and a few others, and you have a rich history to be proud of. 
