First Triple Crown winner during my lifetime! Did anybody else just watch this?

Can see this being purged or moved

johnboy81918 wrote on 06/06/15 at 16:10:30:


This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event... most of us here weren't born yet in 1978, the last time the Triple Crown was won, and it may well be the last Triple Crown win we'll ever see, for all we know. I think such an event deserves its own topic.  

And I was lucky enough to see this live.

Something I've never seen before, and possibly something I'll never see again... Quite simply, the biggest day in the sport of horse racing in our entire lifetimes. I'm not even into horse racing, but I just could not pass up the opportunity to see something that I may never, ever get to see again while I'm alive.

Come December 31, this will certainly go down as one of the biggest news events of 2015...
I might actually save tomorrow's newspaper for this, much as I saved the newspaper the day after the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl-- another thing I might never see happen again.

Now let's wait and see if the Cubs will make the World Series...

Darren wrote on 06/06/15 at 16:31:48:

I feel like I'm getting too much hate for just expressing my opinion

Darren wrote on 06/06/15 at 17:04:39:


You didn't get any hate.

As a horse racing expert, here's my 2 cents: American Pharoah won the triple crown. But he won't go down as a highly regarded winner or extremely popular. All he beat in the race were Mubtaahij, Frosted, and some claimers. He didn't have the tough Sham to deal with like Secretariat did, nor did he have the champion Alydar up his ass every time he race like Affirmed did (Seattle Slew got away with it kinda easy if your wondering). American Pharoah, got away with the easy lead, and honestly that was probably the most unexciting triple crown win ever. He Derby win was impressive, but the other two races lacked quality (well the Preakness wasn't that bad). His owners are absolutely shitty people, they don't deserve this for anything. All in all, American Pharoah won, but it means nothing to a great number of people in the Horse Racing Industry. And while they say there going to run American Pharoah till the end of the year, don't be surprised if they don't. He's worth a lot more in the Stallion Barn (somewhere between 20 and 55 million) than on the track.

@Brett, Idk why you would think Mine That Bird would win the Triple Crown. He was so shitty but lucky in the Derby. Then he wasn't even the favorite in the Preakness. The filly Rachel Alexandra was, and she ended up beating him. And when he went to race in the Belmont, Mine That Bird did even worse. He then went on to the West Virginia Derby, finished third, and never even hit the board in his next 15 subsequent starts.


-Your resident horse racing expert
-Rudy

Brett, we have a saying in horse racing, it's "Pace Makes the Race." Mine That Bird just got awfully lucky. Fast pace, and he liked the slop against a weaker Derby field. And it's pretty obvious it's a fluke seeing as how bad he was for the rest of his career. He was just a weird horse in a weird race that made no sense when he won. It's hard to explain, but he was just uber lucky. Fun fact about him, in the winter of 2008 he was actually among the top choices fir the Derby, and the favorite for the Queen's Plate (the Canadian Kentucky Derby).

California Chrome was a different story. He is just a weak horse who stood out in a weak crop. This will be proven in about a week when he races at the Royal Ascot.

Now Smarty Jones was really different. He should have one, he was so tough to the end but couldn't get it. We used to use Smarty's regular rider as our stable rider.

American Pharoah won the Belmont with one of the fastest times in the history of the race and the 2nd fastest time for a Triple Crown winner.  I don't see how that win lacked quality.

You didn't really offer any proof that time was a bad way to judge a horse other than the fact that one horse who set a great time once didn't do well after that.

Regardless of how it was done, to win a Triple Crown in today's day and age is really a great feat and he will go down as a great horse, no doubt.

I missed it, but the conditions of the track could have been faster than average.

Harvey Kartel wrote on 06/06/15 at 16:27:06:


...Scratch that. The Triple Crown win only got a short article in the sports section. It wasn't the newspaper's main headline, and not even the headline in sports. I completely forgot that last night was the home opener for the Biloxi Shuckers minor league baseball team. (They won, and this was today's main headline) Shows you how much I really care about baseball...

It's safe to say that American Pharoah [sic] is now the most famous horse in the world, if not the most famous animal in the world, period. He's probably the most valuable animal in the world right now, too. He just earned another $1 million plus last night. Victor Espinoza's gotta be worth some serious money now himself.

Harvey Kartel wrote on 06/07/15 at 12:53:47:


American Pharoah appraised at somewhere between 40 and 60 million. And Espinoza (who has had a good year but I consider to be an average rider) donated his winning share of roughly 40k after taxes and paying his agent and valet to charity.