Sticking His Neck Out Just Wasn’t Enough

Can a horse have a broken heart? Could Native Dancer even know the only race he ever lost was the Kentucky Derby?

Well, no. But, if ever a horse was entitled to a broken heart, it was a magnificent son of Pretense called Sham.

Sham was one of the most beautiful animals you will ever see, a glorious golden colt who, the trainers used to say, ran so high and so fast he didn’t leave tracks. He won the Santa Anita Derby in race record time, only a couple of ticks off the track record. His 3-year-old career looked more like a parade than a campaign.

Then, he went to the Kentucky Derby and broke that track record, too. He went to the Preakness and, in effect, broke that record, too.

The trouble was, he didn’t win either of those races. Because a horse called Secretariat broke those track records by more than he did.

In any other year, Sham would have been a statue in the paddock, a horse-of-the-year. He had the misfortune to come along the same time as a modern Man o’ War, a wonder horse, or what they call around the track, a “monster.”

Sentimentalists will tell you Sham’s great heart finally broke in the Belmont that year when he finally gave up the chase and let the “monster” win the race by himself, by a mind-boggling 32 lengths. Sham shuffled himself back to last and never raced again.

His rider, Laffit Pincay, was not to win his first (and only) Kentucky Derby for 11 years and the notion was, if the horse’s heart wasn’t broken, the rider’s surely was--to say nothing of the owner’s and trainer’s.

Sham wasn’t the only horse to chase a Triple Crown winner all the way to the last post. Pompoon was in all War Admiral’s winning races in 1937, and ran second, second and sixth. Run Dusty Run chased Seattle Slew into history in 1977, running second, third and second in the three events.

But only one horse ever chased a Triple Crown winner to the wire in every one of the classic races. Only one rider ever did it.

Alydar had to be the unluckiest runner they ever loaded into a Triple Crown starting stall. Like Sham, he came along in the wrong year. Like Sham, he had his “monster,” Affirmed. Unlike Sham, or Pompoon or Run Dusty Run, he was gaining on his rival with every race, narrowing the margin from 1 1/2 lengths (Kentucky Derby) to a neck (Preakness) to a head (Belmont).

He had the only rider ever to finish second in all three Triple Crown races. (In fact, Pompoon and Run Dusty Run had rider changes in their three efforts).

Jorge Velasquez just surpassed the $100-million mark in purses won at Santa Anita this week, but it’s possible, even at this late date, he would give a large portion of it back to have won the 1978 Triple Crown. Steve Cauthen and Affirmed entered racing’s pantheon that year, the 11th and last Triple Crown winner. Alydar just became racing’s most famous also-ran.

Jorge Velasquez (he prefers his first name Americanized to “George,”) later won his only Kentucky Derby on Pleasant Colony, but nothing can take the taste out of his mouth of the terrible disappointment of 1978.

“I loved that big old horse. He had a heart like a mountain,” Velasquez admitted as he sat in a jockey’s room at Santa Anita the other day waiting to ride his hundredth million-dollar winner. “Can you imagine losing the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont by a total of a little more than a length and a half? How snake-bit can you be?!”

Affirmed, he concedes, was a great horse. “I couldn’t get by him. I could get to him. But not by him. It was frustrating.”

But, Alydar was a great horse, too, he insists. “In the Preakness and the Belmont, Affirmed and him were running all alone--7 1/2 lengths in front of everybody in the Preakness and 13 lengths alone in the Belmont. Those were match races. Alydar never quit, never stopped running. He’d run over a cliff for you.”

Alydar was more than just a mount for the eighth race, Velasquez says. “He was like a pet. Some horses you just ride them and forget. But Alydar you could never forget. He tried so hard. He wanted to please you. It would break your heart what happened to him. I used to feed him sugar, and he would turn his head and look for it just like a baby. A lot of years later, when he was at stud, I went out to the pasture to see him and, when I whistled, he came running. He knew me!”

Alydar was the last of the great Calumet horses. The stable, once the Notre Dame of horse racing, had its last shot at the Derby, which it won eight times, and the Triple Crown, which it won twice, with Alydar. The Markeys, owners of the horse, (Lucille Markey was the widow of Calumet founder and baking powder magnate, Warren Wright) were to pass away shortly.

Jorge Velasquez, who began riding in Panama at the age of 14 when he was a butcher’s apprentice, once won 44 races in one month and won 438 races in his first full year in the States. He won a Kentucky Derby and a Preakness on Pleasant Colony (who was third in the Belmont). He has won Breeders’ Cups, Coaching Club’s Oaks, and Hollywood, Santa Anita and Florida derbies.

But it’s human nature to pine for the love you lost, to curse the chance that was wasted, to toss at night imagining the putt going in, the kick going over the goal posts, the ball hitting the fence--and Alydar just nipping his nemesis at the wire. Jorge has won $100 million and some great races. But there are only 11 Triple Crown winners. And he’s not one of them. By a length, a neck and a nose. And a heart. Slightly broken.