A New Respect After Belmont

Even the negativists who say Real Quiet and Victory Gallop aren’t exceptional racehorses had to come away from the Belmont Stakes with a new respect for the two combatants.

They produced one of the closest, most exciting finishes seen in a Triple Crown race, as Victory Gallop made a furious late charge to catch Real Quiet in the final stride and win by a nose Saturday. For sheer drama, this was as good as the famous Affirmed-Alydar Belmont duel in 1978. But what was most impressive about the colts is that they battled through the rigorous three-race series and delivered gutsy, all-out efforts each time--a notable achievement in a year when so many of their contemporaries were too infirm to compete.

If I were one of those negativists, I would point out that the defections made this a thin crop of 3 year olds, and that the quality of the fields in the Triple Crown races was low. The horses behind Real Quiet and Victory Gallop at Belmont Park were a mediocre bunch--none had won a Grade I stakes this year. And the time of the 1 1/2-mile race, 2 minutes 29 seconds, was moderate. (This was the second-slowest Belmont, contested over a track labeled “fast,” since 1975. The Beyer Speed Figure of 110 was about average for the Belmonts of the past decade.) On the basis of speed, Real Quiet and Victory Gallop figure to get a comeuppance when some of their contemporaries--such as Lil’s Lad, Coronado’s Quest, Indian Charlie--are revved up later in the year.

Nevertheless, the virtues that Real Quiet and Victory Gallop displayed this spring may well be the basis for further improvement and achievement. I recall that in 1987 I wrote about Alysheba some of the same things that have been said of Real Quiet. He had come into the Kentucky Derby with a mediocre record; he hadn’t run notably fast in his Derby and Preakness victories; he would be unworthy to wear the Triple Crown. Yet the grit and durability he showed in the 3-year-old classics enabled him to win the horse-of-the-year title the next season and to become (temporarily) the top thoroughbred money-winner of all time. So this may be only the beginning for Real Quiet and Victory Gallop too.

Of course, nothing Real Quiet does in the future could match the glory and money he might have won by completing a sweep of the Triple Crown. After surging to a three-length lead in mid-stretch, he tired abruptly and lost by the bob of a head, prompting television commentators, casual fans and even the jockey himself to ask the same question: Did Kent Desormeaux move too soon?

Such second-guessing is inevitable when a horse is caught at the wire or when a rally barely falls short. (If the result of the photo finish had been different, everybody would have asked: Did Gary Stevens move too late with Victory Gallop?) But in this case, Desormeaux does seem guilty of a miscalculation. As he approached the far turn, the jockey had two tiring horses in front of him, and he could have overpowered them at any time; he didn’t need to unleash Real Quiet’s burst of speed a half-mile from the finish line. Horses don’t often win the Belmont this way. The move Desormeaux made was reminiscent of Ron Franklin’s premature acceleration with Spectacular Bid in 1979: he too, opened a three-length lead in the stretch, but weakened and lost his bid for the Triple Crown.

Yet as Desormeaux publicly questioned himself, trainer Bob Baffert made no excuses and no criticism of the way he moved on the turn. “That’s the horse’s style,” he said. “You cannot take that away from the horse. That’s the way he won all the other races. He put in his run. The Fish floundered, that’s it.”

Baffert would have pocketed $500,000 of the $5 million bonus Real Quiet could have earned, but even in such a painful moment the trainer maintained his good humor and perspective. “This is what our sport is about,” he said. “These two horses came from humble beginnings, and they turned out to be the last ones to stand. I think it’s great for racing, and I congratulate the winners. I got beat fair and square.”

There aren’t many other modern sports in which winners and losers behave with such grace. The 80,162 people at Belmont Park might not have seen the most talented horses ever to contest the Triple Crown, but they did see the sport at its best.