“Another year without a Triple Crown” is the woeful mantra I keep hearing across the racing world. With Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver failing to clench the second jewel of the Triple Crown, the longest drought between winners in Triple Crown history extends to 32 years. What I find amusing about this across-the-board moan of “what could’ve been” is that of everyone I know, I am the most Triple Crown-rabid racing fan of them all (It’s never happened in my lifetime, after all); yet, in the stretch of the Preakness, I was jumping up and down on my living room floor, screaming like a banshee for the horse that placed 6th in the Kentucky Derby—Lookin at Lucky. You see, Super Saver was never Triple Crown material. Looking at his record raised enough red flags to predict even if he had won the Preakness, he never would’ve made the 1 ½-mile distance of the Belmont Stakes. And I’m still getting over Brownie’s heartbreaking loss, thank-you-very-much. If there was a stand-out horse in this Triple Crown collection after Eskendereya’s defection, Lookin at Lucky was the only horse who came packaged with the goods to potentially get the job done. More than any other horse, Lucky deserved to win the Preakness. Vindication is sometimes the name of the game.
I said it at the beginning of the year, and I’ll say it again—the class of 2010 is a weak crop of 3-year-olds. In such a year, it makes perfect sense why one horse could come along and sweep the Triple Crown—but that horse should’ve been Eskendereya, and tragically, he’s been retired. Lookin at Lucky was the one horse who looked to be able to give Esky a run for his money, but that duel will never happen now, and so it’s only right that Lucky be able to fill in Eskendereya’s big shoes. Unfortunately, Lucky endured a nightmare trip in the Kentucky Derby, and Super Saver was given a dream trip (he only passed one horse the entire race) by the master jockey of Churchill Downs, so there will be no Triple Crown winner yet again. Had Lookin at Lucky won the Kentucky Derby as well as the Preakness, his game trainer Bob Baffert would be sending the colt to the Belmont Stakes, and we may’ve seen history unfold. But for whatever reason, this year was just not meant to be. And so, the Belmont Stakes is shaping up to be a pitiful field of horses with two legitimate contenders. Both Super Saver and Lookin at Lucky will sit out the final leg of the Triple Crown, making it the first time since 2006, when Barbaro was injured in the Preakness, that neither the Kentucky Derby nor Preakness winner ran in the Belmont.
Whether it was the track conditions on Kentucky Derby day dictating a biased outcome to slop-loving horses, or how the furious cavalry charge shut out the classiest contenders, the final order of the Preakness finish was telling in how the best horses didn’t exactly finish in the money in Louisville. Eclipse champion 2-year-old Lookin at Lucky, who entered the Derby with a record of 6 wins in 9 starts, finished out of the money the first time in his career in the Kentucky Derby; so, too, was the story for the third-place finisher in the Preakness, Jackson Bend, whose record now stands at 5 wins in 11 starts. Not to knock the horses who placed in Kentucky, but Super Saver had only won twice in his career before the Derby; third-place finisher Paddy O’ Prado had only won once in his life—and that was on the turf. On a fast track with plenty of elbow room in the Preakness, Super Saver and Paddy O’ Prado had every chance to duplicate their Derby form, but they faded to finish 8th and 6th place in a 12-horse field. A Kentucky Derby winner hasn’t finished that badly in the Preakness since 2001, when Monarchos, who was also sired by Maria’s Mon, ran 6th.
The horses who finished second in the first two legs of the Triple Crown—Ice Box and First Dude—are the sole horses worth following to New York. Both horses ran their hearts out in their respective races; Ice Box’s furious finish in the Derby was nothing short of remarkable after enduring a horrible trip and rallying from near the back of the pack to close in on Super Saver by 2 ½ lengths. Had the finish line been but a little further, the outcome of the race may well have been different. First Dude nearly stole the Preakness in front-running fashion until the determined Lookin at Lucky dug down and finally passed him by ¾ of length. Now, the two will go head-to-head with their very different running styles in the test of the champion, the 1 ½-mile Belmont Stakes the first Saturday in June. So while it’s true there will be no Triple Crown on the line at Belmont, the theme of this year’s series seems to be about vindication. Maybe Lady Luck will be with Ice Box come June, and we will see a couple champion horses come out of this paltry crop, after all.