“And you know what? I’m gonna win the Triple Crown this year.”
There are a lot of outlandish statements made by horsemen this time of the year, when Triple Crown buzz carries the sane minds of man to dizzying extremes and loosens his tongue to utter the most blaspheme of exultations, but you can’t help but feel awe-struck when a focused, cooler than usual Calvin Borel makes such a statement after winning his third Kentucky Derby in four years. It seems, in the mind of this future Hall-of-Famer, the Kentucky Derby has been boiled down to a calcuable game, and now that he has slain this dubious dragon thrice, the next obvious challenge would be the test of all tests—the elusive Triple Crown.
This past first Saturday in May, we witnessed the lightning strike that is Calvin Borel steal the run for the roses in his patented rail-skimming ride for the third time. Without question, Borel’s historic victory will raise his status as one of the all-time great jockeys. Where most jocks lose their head, their guts, their chances, Calvin finds a hole to wiggle through, and does so with such an ease as to put the rest of his 19 challengers to embarrassment. How is it, in each of these three victories, Borel has been allowed to hug the rail and pass only one horse on the way to victory? It is a riddle greater than anything the Sphynx could weave—yet there he goes, like a greased rabbit shooting past the jaws of a fox and into the rabbit hole. And no one can do anything about it.
Make no mistake, without a good horse, Borel wouldn’t be finding his way to the winner’s circle. But good jockeys can find the good within a horse, as he proved last year by riding the 50-1 longshot to glory. This year, mostly due to Calvin, Super Saver went off as the second betting choice in a race that will go down in history for its wide-openness; the narrow favorite, Lookin at Lucky, ended up going off at 7-1 odds. Super Saver, thanks to a Churchill Downs Inc.-sponsored Dream Bet of $100,000 by Glen Fullerton, went off at 8-1. Super Saver had won at Churchill Downs before as a 2-year-old in the Grade II Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes, and he had also won over a sloppy track (He romped in this maiden race at Belmont by seven lengths). For 2010, however, he was winless in two starts, with a runner-up finish in the Grade I Arkansas Derby to a stubborn Line of David, and third by a neck to Odysseus and Schoolyard Dreams in the Grade III Tampa Bay Derby. On top of these credentials, Super Saver, despite the horrible name that brings images of a discount bargain, is regally bred.
To make matters easier for Super Saver, most of the good horses in the field were burdened by nightmarish trips. It all began with the track itself. A relentless rain ceased only moments before the post parade, when the sun peeked out of the cloud-boiled sky to the tune of “My Old Kentucky Home;” the track had been raked and sealed several times that day, creating a hard track under a soup, so that some paths were complete muck, while other paths (like the rail), were molded into an express lane. Calvin already knew where the express lane was thanks to two wins on the undercard that day, and lo and behold, it was his favorite path. While Lookin at Lucky had never before run over a sloppy track, it was his bad luck that proved fatal to his Derby bid. Almost immediately pushed into the rail after the break as three horses narrowed the lane on him, Lucky was slammed into the rail and checked by Paddy O’ Prado before they had even passed the 1/16th pole for the first time, and that’s when trainer Bob Baffert said the race was over for the colt. After that check, Gomez gathered him up, and Lucky was suddenly running in 18th position, while Super Saver was flying free off the pace. Right on his heels was Ice Box, who ended up flying in the stretch to nab second place over Make Music for Me-had he not endured a rough trip, it is conceivable the Zito-trained horse could’ve been wearing roses instead of Super Saver. While Lucky’s next start has yet to be decided by Baffert as of this writing, camp Ice Box is aiming for the Belmont Stakes. The two-time Triple Crown spoiling trainer said ominously, “We will be waiting for Super Saver… at home.”
So, how scary is the combination of Super Saver and Calvin Borel in the Preakness? Last year, Borel was riding on a keg of dynamite with super filly Rachel Alexandra, so he knows how to win at Pimlico with a loaded mount. And as Borel said he used the loss in the Arkansas Derby to figure out what made Super Saver tick, the showdown at Pimlico may serve as a mere stepping-stone on the road to the jockey’s unprecedented goal of winning the Triple Crown. But there will be some new shooters in the Preakness, including West Coast hero Caracortado, as well as Tampa Bay Derby runner-up Schoolyard Dreams. Will Super Saver fulfill Borel’s quest to conquer the Triple Crown, or will the new blood dash his dream? We’ll find out just how much credence there is to the jockey’s statement in only one more week.