This Could Have Been a Very Ugly Situation

In the Isaac Newton Preakness, Jeremy Rose found a loophole in the law of gravity Saturday.

By rights, Rose’s mount, Afleet Alex, should have taken a header at Pimlico, but after clipping heels with Scrappy T in the stretch, he miraculously stayed up, regained his stride and finished off a 4 3/4 -length win. In what could have been a Triple Crown disaster, the oohs turned to aahs in the record crowd of 115,318.

Rose’s expert recovery stemmed from his experience as a high school wrestler, someone suggested.

Not really. “Being scared was responsible,” the 26-year-old jockey said. “Fear makes you very, very strong in a situation like that.”

Had Afleet Alex and Rose hit the deck, a lot of things would have happened, none of them good. With 12 horses in their wake, it would have been open season on the colt and the jockey. Scrappy T would have been disqualified, to last place, and Giacomo, the third-place finisher and a horse beaten by almost 10 lengths, would have become the winner. With an asterisk the size of Mars, the Kentucky Derby winner would have gone on to the Belmont Stakes with a chance to sweep the Triple Crown.

Back at Giacomo’s barn, Jerry Moss, the owner of the gray colt, shuddered at that potential scenario, even though a blitz of the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont is worth a $5-million bonus.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to win the race that way,” Moss said. “We would have become another Roger Maris.”

Giacomo’s jockey, Mike Smith, recalled the 1987 Kentucky Derby, in which Alysheba, with Chris McCarron aboard, clipped the heels of Bet Twice in the stretch and almost went down. Alysheba went on to win, but that near-spill, while treacherous, was child’s play compared to Saturday’s.

“In 30 years,” said Tim Ritchey, who trains Afleet Alex, “I’ve never seen a horse stumble this badly and come back and win. It was absolute split-second timing with Jeremy and Alex, and also somebody upstairs was with us.”

Rose was riding in his first Preakness, but as an Eclipse Award-winning jockey in 2001, he rode hundreds of races in Maryland.

Now based in Delaware, he has won almost 400 races at Pimlico and Laurel Park, its sister track. Prophetically, Ritchey said recently that he considered it an advantage to run in a Preakness with a jockey who knew every nook and cranny of Pimlico.

But at one time, Rose’s position as Afleet Alex’s jockey was precarious. He rode the colt in his first seven starts, winning five, but it happens every spring with Kentucky Derby contenders: Inexperienced Triple Crown riders are frequently bumped by the game’s more accomplished saddlesmiths.

The bumping of Jeremy Rose came March 19 at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark. John Velazquez, last year’s Eclipse Award winner, rode Afleet Alex in the Rebel Stakes. They finished last, but an undiagnosed lung infection, not the ride, was responsible.

Ritchey offered Velazquez the ride in the Arkansas Derby, a month later, but Angel Cordero, the Hall of Fame jockey who books Velazquez’s mounts, said that they had a commitment to ride Bandini in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland the same day.

“After that, there was no thought of using anybody but Jeremy,” Ritchey said. “I must have had calls from 10 jockeys’ agents, but I turned them all down.”

Afleet Alex and Rose won the Arkansas Derby by eight lengths. Rose further distinguished himself with a clever ride through a maze of traffic as Afleet Alex finished third, only a length behind Giacomo, in the Kentucky Derby.

“Jeremy has complete confidence in this horse,” Ritchey said. “He thinks he’s from the planet Krypton. He thinks he’s a super horse.”

Rose didn’t blame Scrappy T and his rider, Ramon Dominguez, for ducking out in the stretch. In the Pimlico jockeys’ room, Dominguez was apologetic, happy that he didn’t turn the 130th Preakness into an asterisk.

Could Scrappy T have won had he run straight?

“I don’t know,” he said. “He lost his action, but I still thought I had a lot of horse left.”

Rose had no doubt.

“Whatever we won by, it would have been double,” he said. “We were really rolling at the time. Getting bumped in a race is not a real big deal, but clipping heels is. Clipping heels is the worst thing that can happen.”

After the interviews, Rose was off to take a shower, change clothes and then he planned to say goodnight to Afleet Alex. He owed him at least one peppermint, the jockey said.

One other thing.

“I may have to blow the dirt out of his nose,” Rose said.