Odds of Completing Triple Crown: 50-50

As he grazes contentedly in the grass around Barn Five at Belmont Park, Sunday Silence prepares to become the 12th member of one of throughbred racing’s rather exclusive fraternities.

The question is which one.

Trainer Charlie Whittingham’s jet black colt will either be the 12th horse to sweep the Triple Crown, or the 12th to have that dream shattered by the grueling final race in the series--the demanding 1 1/2 miles of the Belmont Stakes.

Distance is the difference.

The Kentucky Derby is 1 1/4 miles run under the historic twin spires of Churchill Downs. The Preakness is 1 3/16 miles around the tight turns at Pimlico. But the Belmont is an endurance test, conducted over a sprawling 1 1/2-mile track that seems to go on forever.

None of the 3-year-olds has run that far before they get to New York for the last Triple Crown race, the one they call, “The Test of the Champion.” Sometimes that is a crucial, decisive factor. It was in 1987 when Alysheba went after the Triple for trainer Jack Van Berg.

“A mile-and-a-half,” Van Berg sighed. “That makes it so much different. The distance is a major factor. Jockeys get fooled.

“We should have been in front. There was no speed in the race.”

Alysheba had beaten Bet Twice by three-quarters of a length at the Derby and a half-length at the Preakness. His rival was getting closer but Van Berg wasn’t terribly concerned. In the paddock, he talked confidently with jockey Chris McCarron.

“I told him he might be in front every step of the way,” Van Berg recalled.

“We weren’t.”

The chart describes a tough trip in which Van Berg’s horse had trouble finding running room around the far turn. “Then he got turned sideways,” the trainer said. “It made for a difficult trip.”

McCarron never had the colt better than third and apologized to the trainer after the race. Van Berg dismissed the disappointment, calling the fourth place finish behind Bet Twice, “just one of those things.”

“I’m just glad,” Van Berg said dryly of McCarron, “he wasn’t flying an airplane.”

What did he remember best about the race?

The Hall of Fame trainer laughed. “My $5 million (Triple Crown bonus) going out the window,” he said. “I had the 10% spent.”

There was no $5 million riding on the Triple in 1981 when New York trainer Johnny Campo nursed Pleasant Colony through the Derby-Preakness exacta and came home for the Belmont. There, however, his horse was outrun in the backstretch, forced wide in the stretch and finished third behind Summing.

“He had a lot going against him,” Campo said. “He probably had done too much racing. He had three tough races in six weeks. The weather was hot. I kind of knew he was gonna get beat.”

Pleasant Colony had trouble from the start of the Belmont. “He was carrying a camera and he flipped in the gate,” Campo said.

But again, the trainer said, it all comes down to distance. “It’s a jockey’s race at that distance,” he said. “It’s tough to ride because most jockeys don’t know pace. It should be easier to go a mile and a half because you’re just galloping.”

Did Campo say anything before the Belmont to jockey Jorge Velasquez?

“What are you going to say? He won the Derby and Preakness.”

The Triple Crown was taking a beating in the 70s. First there was Secretariat in 1973, capping his three-race sweep with a remarkable 31-length victory in the Belmont. Then came Seattle Slew in 1977 and Affirmed in 1978, outdueling Alydar in each of the three races.

When Spectacular Bid won the Derby and Preakness in 1979, it looked like the thoroughbred industry would have a third straight Triple winner and the fourth in seven years.

Then came the safety pin.

After finishing third in the Belmont behind Coastal, Bid’s trainer, Bud Delp, said, “The best horse won. We have no excuses.”

But the next day, he revealed that Spectacular Bid had turned up lame the morning of the race. When he examined his horse, Delp discovered a safety pin lodged in the horse’s left front hoof. The pin had gone an inch deep and drawn blood.

Delp and the owners considered scratching Bid from the race but finally decided to run. The trainer had a simple explanation.

“You can’t win the Belmont by staying in the barn,” he said.

Sometimes you can’t win by running in it, either.

Carry Back came into the 1961 Belmont thinking Triple Crown after winning the Derby and the Preakness with big stretch runs. He made another one in the Belmont and it moved him up--from ninth place to seventh, the poorest finish there of any Derby-Preakness winner.

Other Belmont disappointments were Canonero II, fourth behind Pass Catcher in 1971, and Kauai King, fourth to Amberoid in 1966.

Forward Pass avoided a controversy in 1966 when he finished second to Stage Door Johnny by 1 1/4 lengths. He had come to Belmont with a shot at a tainted Triple Crown after being declared winner of the Derby when first place finisher Dancer’s Image was disqualified. Had Forward Pass won Belmont, his Triple undoubtedly would have required an asterisk.

Of the 11 horses who had their Triple Crown bids upset at the Belmont, none came closer to completing the feat than the first one, Calumet Farms’ Pensive in 1944. At the mile-and-a-quarter mark of the race, just a quarter-mile from the finish, Conn McCreary had his horse in front. But Bounding Home overtook him in the final eighth of a mile to win by a half-length.

The difference between purses for first and second that day was $45,000. The difference on Saturday will be $1.1 million, and more than that if Sunday Silence misses his Triple Crown and the $5 million payoff that goes with it.