This Saturday, at Pimlico Racetrack in Baltimore, the Preakness Stakes will be run. The Preakness is the second leg of the so-called triple crown of racing. The Preakness is held two weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks before the Belmont Stakes. No horse since Affirmed in 1978 has won all three of these races. In my opinion, the only horse with a possibility of winning the triple crown in 2009, the Derby winner, Mine That Bird, will not be the first triple crown winner in 31 years.
In a delightful fluke, Mine That Bird won the Derby as a 50-to-one long shot, the second highest odds on a winning horse in Derby history. Mine That Bird got pinched back to last of 19 at the start of the race, giving his jockey, Calvin Borel, the opportunity to gallop him along at the back of the pack, along the rail. The surface along the rail was firmer than the rest of the track as a result of rainfall and track maintenance procedures (sort of like the strip along the beach where a wave has just receded). With about 3/8s of a mile to the finish line, jockey Borel, in a brilliant ride, was able to begin passing the other horses on the inside, as they drifted off the rail owing to fatigue. In essence, Mine That Bird ran without interference on a firmer, faster surface, on the shortest circumference of the course, while the other horses jostled each other for position on a deeper, slower surface.
Even though Calvin Borel is illiterate, he is no fool when it comes to horses. He is switching horses tomorrow to ride the only filly in the Preakness, Rachel Alexandra. I think she is as good a three-year-old filly, at the sort of distance over which the Preakness is contested, as I have ever seen. Tomorrow, for the first time, she will try to beat male horses. I think she can do it.
