Triple Crown season wraps up

With the conclusion of the Belmont Stakes, the road to the Triple Crown 2013, with all its detours along the way, is now ready for resurfacing. For many horse racing fans, the season is over until they open the gates at Saratoga.

For the dedicated punters out there who will continue to support the racing industry, they are left to scratch their collective heads and try to figure out what went on during the last five weeks.

Following the Florida Derby, “Orb” was the second coming of Secretariat and looked the part winning the Kentucky Derby. When he did not live up to the hype in the second leg of the Crown, The Preakness, his fans had to decide if they would support him in the mile-and-a-half Belmont. They remained loyal and bet the horse down to 2-1 favoritism and were again disappointed.

If we are looking for a three-year-old Horse of the Year candidate, we will have to wait for the big summer races to see if someone is going to emerge from the pack. The Travers at Saratoga and the Haskell at Monmouth will be interesting events and will draw the attention of the racing world.

Meanwhile, we have just witnessed a couple of veteran riders, Mike Smith and Gary Stevens, take the younger riders to school. We saw trainer D. Wayne Lucas prove he still can get a horse ready for the big races and will take on all comers. Trainer Todd Pletcher, a former assistant to Lucas, showed us that if you enter enough horses into a race, you eventually will come out on top.

Attendance was down at this year’s Belmont. A shaky weather forecast and the fact that coolers were not allowed could have been factors. If coolers are not allowed at Saratoga this summer, the upstate turnstiles may need some WD-40 by August.

Diamond Vision

*Dave O’Brien of ESPN baseball must be drinking from the thermos of Don Orsillo. He is now telling us how many outs there are “in the inning.”

*Why Vince Scully is the best: After Adrian Gonzalez over ran a dribbler to first for an error, he said, “A fourth grader could have made that play, that was embarrassing for Gonzalez.”

*Word around MLB is Josh Beckett can hit a golf ball farther than anyone in the league.

*Sports Editor Gary Brown (Springfield Union News), in last week’s column: “You are getting old if you saw Frank Oppedisano hoop it up for the AIC Yellow Jackets.”
Pittsfield’s Paul Procopio was his teammate on those teams. Frank later coached against Paul’s St. Joe squads while at Palmer High School.

Posted by Dick Syriac on June 20, 2013. Filed under Berkshire Sports Guy,Columns,Opinion,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry