A Telecast That Needed a Two-Minute Warning

If watching a lot of supposedly smart people looking very dumb on national television is your idea of edge-of-the-seat entertainment, then, yes, of course, by all means, Saturday’s Kentucky Derby was (all together now) the most exciting two minutes in sports!

When was the last time all the experts, every last one of them, with no exceptions, guessed wrong when trying to predict the outcome a sporting event this big?

(OK. Besides the most recent Super Bowl.)

Bob Baffert’s War Emblem won the 128th Derby, and if you had any clue he would, you’re a far better man or woman than anyone NBC or ESPN shoved in front of a camera Friday or Saturday.

“This is a crazy Derby,” NBC’s Tom Hammond said just before the race, considered by the pundits to be the most wide-open Derby in years. “You can have an opinion and you can’t be wrong, perhaps.”

Oh yes you can.

ESPN, going with the if-you-throw-enough-darts approach, rounded up four experts on Friday’s handicapping show and five more on Saturday’s prerace show.

Three went for Perfect Drift, who wound up third.

Five others cast single votes for Harlan’s Holiday (who finished seventh), Essence of Dubai (ninth), Saarland (10th), Medaglia d’Oro (fourth) and Private Emblem, who possibly could have been confused with War Emblem, at least until they got to the gate. Private Emblem finished 14th.

A special citation goes to Chris Fowler, who boldly offered four names he thought could contend--Harlan’s Holiday, Perfect Drift, Medaglia d’Oro and Lusty Latin. Why stop there? As we quickly learned, he should have just kept going, ticking off more names, maybe round it off to a top 16.

NBC had Mike Battaglia and Bob Neumeier take their shots. Battaglia went for Perfect Drift, Neumeier tabbed Saarland.

NBC’s sports Web site polled its on-line legions of “cyber cappers.” Top four favorites: Perfect Drift (13% of the vote), Came Home (12%), Saarland (12%) and Medaglia d’Oro (11%).

War Emblem, a 20-1 longshot, was scarcely mentioned, despite his connection with Baffert, who has now won the Kentucky Derby three times in the last six years.

Why?

One reason: His connection with Baffert.

It hasn’t yet been a month.

With his 2002 Kentucky Derby prospects looking unusually bleak, Baffert watched War Emblem win the Illinois Derby on April 6 and had an epiphany: If you can’t win the big one the old-fashioned way--you know, hard work, sweat of the brow, actually earning it, that sort of thing--you can always go out and buy it. George Steinbrenner’s been doing it for years.

Baffert persuaded Prince Ahmed Bin Salman to join him on a quick poach of the horse, spending a reported $1 million to make sure he had an entry at Churchill Downs.

This did not sit well with the national horse racing media, which appears to have grown tired with Baffert, a one-time white hat among trainers, and figured a good way to crack back on the prodigal one was to ignore him in the prerace buildup.

Bill Finley of ESPN.com summed up the general mood Friday with an immediate dismissal of War Emblem.

“The way he won the [Illinois Derby] is an indication of how this horse likes to run--right to the front, sets slow fractions and was able to win,” Finley said. “That’s not going to happen Saturday. He got away with a 48-[second]-and-change half in Illinois--forget about that. He’s going to get roasted early. Mr. Baffert’s going to have a long afternoon.”

Finley was half right. War Emblem ran a similar race Saturday--took the lead early, never lost it, never was really threatened. He wasn’t roasted.

Was it exciting?

For Baffert and the Prince, no doubt.

But the “most exciting two minutes in sports?”

They weren’t even the most exciting two minutes in sports on television Saturday.

Earlier, via pay-per-view, Arsenal defeated Chelsea to win England’s F.A. Cup, 2-0, on spectacular goals by Ray Parlour and Fredrik Ljungberg. Two pretty exciting minutes, those.

Later, the Sacramento Kings and the Dallas Mavericks met in the second round of the NBA playoffs, engaging in what Marv Albert described as “racehorse basketball.” Pick two minutes from that game, any two minutes. Better yet, pick a winner. Unlike the Derby, you’d have a 50% chance of being right.

How exciting is it to watch the same name win again by simply buying the championship? To a certain extent, it’s all relative. Last year’s World Series was considered a classic, largely because the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the New York Yankees in seven games, largely because the Diamondbacks bought the two best pitchers in the world.

It happens. “A lot of members of the media knocked [the prince] for buying Baffert a Derby horse instead of bringing one up himself,” Hammond said. “I don’t think it matters much. The Baffert magic works again.”

I suppose you can call it that. Right about now, the horse racing media would like to call the whole thing off, but the Preakness is in two weeks. Handicapping can be dangerous, but, odds are, Baffert will be there.