Opinion

It’s Oaks morning in England. Here, well, it’s Belmont Eve morning. Strong card at Belmont Park today, unbelievable card Saturday.

Hard to fault American Pharoah, as he sauntered around Thursday morning. We’ve been here before, watching the wheels fall off – Funny Cide was mentally at the end of his tether, Smarty Jones fraying, Big Brown was cracking and I’ll Have Another, well, his tendon told the world how he was doing. This year, from the track apron, American Pharoah looks like he’s handling it, he hasn’t changed, mentally and physically, he looks the same, like milk in a tall glass. That’s what you need to endure the rigors of the Triple Crown. Constitution and ability. A lot of both. People and horses. 

“What are you working on?”

It is asked often. Mostly, because people don’t really know what I do. Which is fair, because there are plenty of days when I don’t know what I do.

I laughed at the question.

There must be a moment before a man gets struck by lightning when he says, “Man, I shouldn’t be out here…”

Standing on the turf course, looking toward the Pimlico grandstand Saturday afternoon, I was thinking that thought. Lightning had already appeared beyond the backstretch, it seemed like a long way away, but now, looking over the grandstand, there was no doubt, it was coming. My radio cohorts, safe and secure (well, as safe and secure as you can feel in a wooden hut on a roof) described the weather, “…under battleship gray skies…sprinkling…we could be in for a storm.”

Well, hello again. What’s it been, a year already? Hard to believe 12 months have slipped past since we last heard from you.

What’s your name again?

That’s right, “Good For Racing.”

Counting down. The Preakness looms in hours. The toll both, American Pharoah needs to pay the toll. Best horse, short field, inside post, all eyes, all arrows on him. Feels like we’ve been here before.

“Do you live in Baltimore?”

A friend asked me about my old friends, the band of brothers who went to work when others went to party every weekend. The jocks’ room. I arrived in 1988, as the Hendriks/Teter/Lawrence era was closing and stayed 12 years, creating our own era. It was the last gasp of American-born jump jockeys, the one before the Bentley/Massey era that changed the game. We had fun, we were young and free, riding at long-forgotten places like St. James, Marengo and Brookhill, balancing euphoria and disaster, risk and reward, trying desperately to get on the likes of Victorian Hill, Rowdy Irishman, Flat Top, Saluter or any horse who would change your life. 

Tis the season to read or listen to the words, “good for racing.”

Sometimes those words are ramped up a notch to “great for racing.”

The discussion is about as tired and boring as the racing is dead versus the racing is alive and well debate in the weeks leading up to and including the Triple Crown. Conclusions cannot be made about the game when only looking at the winter months or looking at the nearly 300,000 fans that packed Churchill Downs for two days in May. But we’ll revisit that discussion another day.

Home from another Derby voyage. Deep breath. Regroup. Unpack. Iroquois Steeplechase on the horizon. Better get to the cleaners for a quick turnaround. I came home with four programs, three hit the trash and one hit the mementos pile. Spring time in racing, no rest. 

Life is all about firsts, for better or worse. First day of school, first dates, first beer when you’re legal, first beer when you’re not, first child, first marathon, first car accident, first day of work, first day of retirement, first Kentucky Derby, first kiss.