I was there for his Sanford. I think I bet him, but in memories like this, we always do, don’t we?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6rPV119da0

And I was there for his Hopeful, which is when I became utterly charmed, watching him cruising through the slop, then “zig-zagging his way through the stretch at Saratoga,” as Tom Durkin put it. Despite that crazy run, he always looked like he knew exactly what he was doing, always in control, always steadily moving forward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJTcnGG355s[/embed]

So I watched through the fall and the spring; I watched him finish second, and I watched him win, and I realized that, for the first time in my life, I had a Derby horse. My parents were visiting the weekend of the Rebel, and we stayed home to watch the race before going out to dinner. We watched him finish last, and my father said, “So much for your Derby horse,” as he turned off the television. I blamed, emotionally, the rider change; I said that there had to be something wrong for him to run that way. I blurted my vindication when the news came out that he’d been sick.

I watched that tantalizingly close finish in the Derby, still believing that he was the best horse, refusing, almost, to believe that he’d lost. (Sometimes, in my head, Afleet Alex really did win the Triple Crown.)

And then came the Preakness.

My birthday is at the end of May; a friend with an April birthday and I decided that we’d have a joint celebration at our favorite Brooklyn bar (how could I not love a bar that had the same name as my cat?). It was a Significant Birthday for both of us, and we invited tons of people.

In those days before internet wagering (at least for us), we stopped at the local OTB to place our bets and buy three $2 win tickets on every horse in the race, to give out as party favors. During that spring of New York racing, some friends had bestowed on me the nickname Scrappy T, thinking it an apt moniker; I bet Afleet Alex to win and Scrappy T to place, and I boxed them in an exacta.

The party was great: the bar’s proprietors had surprised me with a birthday cake, it was a gorgeous day, and dozens of our friends had turned out to celebrate with us. But as the race got closer, I got that horrible pit-of-my-stomach, oh-my-god-what-if-he-loses, oh-please-let-him-win-and-please-let-him-come-home-safe feeling.

The good folks at Floyd pulled down the big screen, projected the race, turned off the music, and turned up the volume. The party-goers clutched their party favor tickets, and we watched.

Watching the replay now, I realize that I’d somehow forgotten how Afleet Alex sailed up the rail, impossibly quickly, going outside, then trying to go back in…

And then.

And then.

And then that feeling in my stomach exploded, because in the time it took for my eyes to transmit to my brain what I was seeing, the thought formed: “He’s not only going to lose. He’s going to break down.”

But somehow, miraculously, he didn’t, and the thought transformed: “He’s not only not going to break down. He’s going to win…” and he gathered himself up and ran himself right into Preakness history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfFzODoD7YY&playnext=1&list=PL95A9CD3CE62F0E84

And then.

Exultation.

My horse won. My horse won, as no other horse had done. My horse won, as no other horse had done, on my birthday. And I had won a pot of money. The drinks were on me.

Now we had one more thing to celebrate, and celebrate we did. Those people holding the #12 party favor ticket were pretty psyched, too.

Later, as the party wound down, I pulled out my winning tickets…to discover that they weren’t winning.

The clerk at the OTB had punched in the wrong numbers, or maybe I had. There was no #12 on my tickets. I have blocked out whatever number it in fact was.

It was crushing; the win, that exacta, would have meant about $300, far more than I’d ever, at that point, considered winning on a horse race. It ached for a long time.

But, oh, my, it was a heck of a party.

Summer 2010, Afleet Alex at Gainesway

Day of the Kitten at Belmont on Friday afternoon—and race 4 had “hunch bets” written all over it for me: three Kitten’s Joy offspring (Raise the Kitty, Lisa’s Kitten, Jill’s Kitten) and an Afleet Alex filly. Unfortunately, they were all blown off the track by Will Phipps’ first time starter Mehndi, who became my favorite two-year-old.

Hunch bettors might have gone with the inebriation exacta in race 5—El Borracho and Five Cases—but only those with impaired ability would have used the latter, who went off at 60-1 and finished fourth. El Borracho was second; the superfecta paid $543.

And is anyone paying attention to Norberto Arroyo on long shots? He was on Five Cases; last Saturday he brought home Offensive Attack at $73; and yesterday he won the last race on Skyebay, who paid $96.50.

A terrific moment in the seventh race, when the Chief sent four year old filly Granted Tiger to the post; her record was 14 – 2 – 2 – 1, and she’d thrown in a few clunkers in her last few races (though, granted, one of them was the Shuvee). The filly is owned by Jerkens’s assistant Fernando Abreu, and she was looking for her first win since January.

And she found it! Sent off as the favorite, she sat off the pace and made her move in the stretch, pulling away to win by two lengths. The Chief missed it (word has it that he was at a family event), but the exulting of Fernando and his friends more than made up for the Chief’s absence. Congrats, Fernando! (Disclosure: I headed to the winner’s circle to take pictures, realized that I didn’t have my camera, and was invited into the photo. Wrong side of the camera, but thrilling nonetheless to be a part of this very happy moment.) Photo credit to Adam Coglianese.

Maryjean Wall unwittingly answered one of my questions about one of those hockey-named race horses in a recent book review on her website:

Lindros: Consider the story of Lindros, a foal of 1997 who won $198,616 at the
races. His racing career went downhill; he has found a second career as one of
two Thoroughbreds working in a therapeutic riding program. One thinks of such
programs better served by horses of mixed breeds. Lindros is proving otherwise.
We are told about this son of Strike the Gold, “It’s just amazing. It didn’t
take him long to be comfortable with group lessons, private lessons, grooming
seminars, and being ridden western and bareback. He doesn’t do anything wrong.”

Sean Avery hasn’t raced since his lone start last summer at Saratoga.

And finally, thanks to Ashley Herriman at NYRA, who brought this gem to my attention:

Source: Lolcats n Funny Pictures

Thanks to Trackmaster for past performance information.

Received this photo a few days ago from Anna House at the Belmont Child Care Association, of the children playing on the Lemon Drop Kid Playground during their Cultural Olympics.

The NYRA website shares the good news that Jess Jackson’s Curlin for Kids charity is donating $100,000 to Anna House:

“Curlin has had much success in New York both in Saratoga and Belmont so it is
fitting that we should make a donation to Anna House on the day he attempts to
make history. His success on the track as helped education and children’s
charities throughout America,” said [Jess Jackson’s wife and Curlin part owner
Barbara] Banke, who is also a successful attorney. “Even though Jess is an only
child, family has always been a priority in his life. Our children are very
important to us, and we are so grateful to have a horse like Curlin that can
help make a difference in the lives of children where he races but especially
for the backstretch workers in New York.”

And finally, word recently from Alex’s Lemonade Stand, which raises money to fight childhood cancer. In 2000, four year old cancer patient Alexandra Scott decided that she wanted to have a lemonade sale to raise money to help kids with cancer; for four years, until her death at age eight, Alex and her family held an annual lemonade sale to raise money for childhood cancer research. In 2005, the connections of Afleet Alex linked their star colt to this charity, bringing it to national attention when more than 1,100 Alex’s Lemonade Stands were put up on Belmont Stakes Day around the country.

In January, Tim Ritchey and Cash is King Racing Stable will be honored at the third annual Lemon Ball to raise money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Afleet Alex captured the nation’s imagination in a way that few horses have done since, and it would be great if some of his many fans could show up to support this cause.

I’ll be spending the day at soggy Belmont, in hopes that no bad weather can dampen a terrific day of racing.

I hit an early, well-paying (as I recall) exacta in the White Carnation when Judy Soda was DQ’d to second and Madonna Lily got the win.

And then the rest of the card is pretty much of a blur until the Belmont. Some nice horses won that day—Round Pond, Good Reward, Lost in the Fog—but I was hyper-focused on my uber-crush, Afleet Alex. I’d watched him at Saratoga the year before, watched that crazy, green run in the stretch in the Sanford, watched him try to lose that race and win despite himself. I exulted in his victories, despaired after his loss in the Rebel, comforted myself after his third in the Derby, gasped at his Preakness…and watched him blow by the field in the Belmont, on one of my favorite racing days ever. “It’s over,” my brother said, lowering the binoculars as they came around the turn. I tried to take a picture of the stretch run, and the frame came up empty: Alex off to the right, the rest of the field back to the left. I can’t imagine ever being happier about the outcome of a horse race.

Please feel free to post your comments/memories of the races that day…

In other news: I got a DRF watch list report of an Evening Attire workout on Saturday morning: four furlong in 48.08, from the gate. From the gate! Dave Grening reports on this work, noting that it’s Evening Attire’s second work from the gate since he was a two-year-old. I feel like I remember that other gate work, maybe two years ago? Evening Attire’s bad breaks were becoming a habit, and while Pat Kelly noted that it was unlikely that the gelding’s behavior would change, he obviously decided to give it a shot.

Last December, Kelly said that Evening Attire “falls asleep” in the gate when he has to wait in there too long for the start, and in Grening’s article, the trainer expresses dismay that the horse has drawn the rail again.

Sightseeing was one of my favorite three-year-olds last year, and I’m interested to see how he does going long; he’s one of Evening Attire’s opponents in the Brooklyn on Friday.

I haven’t felt this way since 2004. Then, it was summer love: warm rains, summer breezes, cold beers and lemonade. Picnics, tank tops, flowers and trees in bloom.

It was July 29th, and his name was Afleet Alex.

Then, it was Saratoga; now, it’s Aqueduct and Gulfstream. Inner track racing instead of the Spa, bourbon instead of beer, sweaters and boots instead of sundresses and sandals. But oh, the feeling is the same…

I first saw him on November 17th, and his name is Saratoga Russell. Unlike that summer day in 2004, it was not love at first sight; older and wiser, I watched from afar, tentative, fearing to make myself vulnerable to the all-too-frequent two-year-old crush that so quickly turns to disillusionment.

But resist I can no longer. Derby trail or no Derby trail, Saratoga Russell is my three-year-old.

We have followed his exploits in this space, and last week I spoke with Kerry Carlson, chief marketing officer at West Point Thoroughbreds, owner of Saratoga Russell. She confirmed to me that last month the colt was hit by what sounds like a fairly unpleasant intestinal bug that put him out of training for several weeks. Clearly, he is fully recovered ­off his terrific showing at Gulfstream, and he’s expected to make his next appearance in graded stakes company. Though one obviously has to think of him as a colt who could be on the Derby trail, the necessity of graded stakes money to get in makes it a daunting challenge, and Saratoga Russell will need to pick up a big purse to make Derby entry a possibility. When we spoke, Kerry didn’t offer any thoughts on what that next spot might be, but his race on Saturday leaves open several possibilities, as he’s shown that he likes both Aqueduct and Gulfstream, fast and sloppy tracks.

As if there’s not enough to like about the horse, his back-story is appealing as well. He’s named for Russell Horvat, a former West Point owner who was a part owner of Saratoga View, a talented colt who won his first time out at Saratoga but was shortly thereafter injured in a training accident and euthanized. Terry Finley, president of West Point, liked the colt and his dam, Prologue, so much that he purchased Saratoga Russell (Trippi – Prologue (Theatrical)) as a two-year at the OBS sale last March.

While some descendants of the Theatrical line, such as Shakespeare, focus on the dramatic elements of the name, Saratoga Russell’s namesake carries a sadder story. Russell Horvat was diagnosed with leukemia, a disease that took his life last April, shortly after West Point purchased Saratoga Russell, from the same dam of Horvat’s winning colt, Saratoga View. To honor Horvat’s memory, friends and members of his family became part owners of Saratoga Russell and named the colt in his honor. Terry Finley writes about both the sale and Horvat in this newsletter from last spring.

In another link to that long-ago summer love, I can’t help but be reminded of Afleet Alex, and the way his connections linked to Alex’s Lemonade Stand to raise awareness of and money for pediatric cancer. Here’s hoping that those of us who make a few dollars off Saratoga Russell can contribute some of those winnings to research for the disease that took his namesake’s life.

In matters of the heart, I generally proceed cautiously—I mean, even the Derby future pools encourage us to play the field, right? But I fear it’s too late…at this point, Saratoga Russell, my heart to thy rudder is tied by the strings…and thy beck might from the bidding of the gods command me…