Belmont Paradox

Is a California Chrome win in the Belmont the answer racing needs?

What happened when Wile E. Coyote caught the Road Runner?
No, because Coyote never got Road Runner which brings us to Saturday’s Belmont Stakes and California Chrome.
For years racing fans have bemoaned how the sport needs a Triple Crown winner and how a horse pulling off the trifecta would infuse much needed interest into the sport. For many Americans horse racing only exists for five weeks a year, and in that short window the entire viewership is predicated on whether the Kentucky Derby winner can finally break the streak and take the final two races.
Lose that chase and what’s left? A bombed out, shell of a sport that has been ravaged by rampant drug use. It’s a sport that sees dozens of horses, many drugged up by their trainers, dying on the track or in training on a monthly basis. The golden age of horse racing left America long ago and has been replaced by the gilded era filled with less-than-clean characters like Rick Dutrow, Steve Asmussen and Bob Baffert who have combined for over 10,000 total wins and 13 Triple Crown race wins but have also racked up dozens of combined drug violations.
Yet the Triple Crown remains, and with the Triple Crown the proverbial carrot at the end of the proverbial stick it endures. It is the ultimate jewel in sports because of how fleeting it’s suitors’ chances are of winning it. Horses only get one shot, and it’s contested over a seven-minute span of racing across three states within a five-week window. There is no second chance.
The Triple Crown drought is the same way. Yes, there was a 25-year drought between Citation in 1948 and when Secretariat moved like a tremendous machine around the far turn at Belmont in 1973, but there was nowhere near the media coverage that there was today. Today, as has been the case since Real Quiet nearly turned the trick 16 years ago, Americans are inundated with stories about how this horse is “the” horse. War Emblem, Funny Cide, Charismatic, Smarty Jones, Big Brown, and I’ll Have Another were all “the” horse* to be able to get the job done and all lost in different ways.
*For my money “the” horse was Afleet Alex in 2005. He came up third to Giacomo in the Derby before rolling in the Preakness and deconstructing the field in the Belmont.
The stretch at Belmont is where dreams go to die, but eventually a horse will capture that dream and make the Triple Crown a reality. He will be the toast of America. There will be magazine covers, television spots, and I’m sure even an appearance on a late-night talk show. Since Affirmed defeated Alydar three times in their classic series in 1978 there have been 11 contenders who stepped into the gate at Belmont with a chance at capturing that dream (I’ll Have Another would have been the 12th in 2012 but was scratched the day before the Belmont).
But what happens to the sport when it is so singularly tied to the chase of one title? Every year 32 football teams vie for a shot at a Super Bowl title, but every year there is a winner and there’s another chase the following year. Horse racing doesn’t have that type of luxury. Horse racing doesn’t have a captive audience like it did in the 70s when Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed all won the Triple Crown. In the pre-cable era there wasn’t much else to watch expect the races. In the era of a thousand channels what motivation would there be for a casual viewer to tune in once a horse breaks the Triple Crown drought?
People want to say they were “there” when a major event happened. I can say I remember exactly where I was when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, when the Giants upset the undefeated Patriots, and when Florida Gulf Coast, and Dunk City, ran wild over Georgetown. It’s a unique feeling that is only born out of sports. Without a Triple Crown chase there is no more “there” moment for a sport in desperate need of as many as it can get.
If California Chrome captures the Triple Crown on Saturday evening the whole of American horse racing will begin the road down towards answering the question: if something has come to define you for 36 years what happens once it’s gone?