TWO DOWN, ONE TO GO

Like Affirmed, Silver Charm was bred in Florida. Like Whirlaway, he was beaten in his two prep races before the Kentucky Derby. Like Omaha, Silver Charm won the Derby at 4-1. Like War Admiral, he won the Preakness by a head.

There’s more. Seattle Slew had crooked front legs, hence his low sale price of $17,500. Silver Charm, turned out in front, went for a modest $85,000. Seattle Slew’s dam was sired by Poker. So was Silver Charm’s.

Owner John Hertz wanted to sell Count Fleet when he was a 2-year-old, but his jockey, Johnny Longden, discouraged him. Bob and Beverly Lewis could have sold Silver Charm as a 2-year-old, for $1.6 million, but the owners and their trainer, Bob Baffert, weren’t hot on the idea.

In winning the Derby and the Preakness, Silver Charm has shown the tactical speed of Citation and the true grit of Affirmed, and if he wins the Belmont Stakes next Saturday, he will have the most important reason to be in league with all of these horses: He will be the 12th Triple Crown champion, and the first since Affirmed in 1978.

There are few naysayers out there. Trainer Charlie Whittingham, who almost got his Triple Crown in 1989, but was thwarted when a sore-footed Sunday Silence ran second to Easy Goer in the Belmont, walks down Baffert’s shed row to reach the track at Santa Anita every morning. Whittingham sees this nouveau riche trainer as a guy who’s made of the right stuff.

“He does a lot of things different than most trainers, but he runs a lot of horses and they all run good,” Whittingham said. “He’s done the right thing by taking the horse to [Churchill Downs] to get him ready. Down there, nobody’s going to be bothering him and that’s a good track to train on.”

Another Hall of Fame trainer, John Nerud, missed his only chance to win the Derby when Bill Shoemaker, riding Gallant Man, prematurely stood up in the saddle and Iron Liege won by a nose in 1957.

“Before the Preakness, I said that if Silver Charm won that race, he’d enhance his chances to take the Triple Crown by 50%,” Nerud said. “He only wins by heads, and the other guys are always saying that if they had one more jump, they’d beat him. But it never happens. This is the best Triple Crown candidate we’ve had in a long time. The trainer’s handled him well. He was tough on the horse before the Derby, then he backed off of him before the Preakness.”

The Belmont’s mile and a half may look like Mount Everest by the time the Silver Charm barn gets to Saturday, but if the metallic-gray colt can dispose of Free House, Touch Gold and a few others one more time, he’ll join this charmed circle.

FROM MAIDEN TO MASTER

Sir Barton was ahead of his time. It wasn’t until 1930 that Charles Hatton, searching for a catch phrase to blanket the three races in his Daily Racing Form columns, came up with “Triple Crown.” Historians made the term retroactive, and Sir Barton, a maiden before the 1919 Derby, became the first Triple Crown champion.

Sir Barton had such shell-like hooves that his shoes were always falling off. In one race, he finished second with no shoes at all.

It rained on Derby day, but Sir Barton kept all his shoes on and beat his highly regarded stablemate, Billy Kelly, by five lengths. It was Sir Barton’s first victory, his first start of the year and his seventh race overall.

The conditions of the Derby were different--now, only fillies carry less than the standard 126 pounds--and Sir Barton had to shoulder only a feathery 112 1/2, giving him an edge of almost 10 pounds over some of his rivals.

But in Sir Barton’s four-length victory in the Preakness, only four days later, he carried 126 pounds and was just as facile as in the Derby.

Then, before the Belmont, Sir Barton won the one-mile Withers Stakes. The Belmont brought out only two rivals and Sir Barton won by five lengths.

For jockey John Loftus, it was the start of a fickle year. Two months after the Belmont, Loftus rode Man o’ War at Saratoga in the only race the great horse ever lost.

OUT OF ORDER

The Preakness was run eight days before the Derby in 1930. Gallant Fox was even money at Pimlico, and Earl Sande, unsuccessful as a trainer, came out of retirement and rode him to a three-quarter-length victory.

In the 15-horse Derby, Gallant Fox was trapped on the rail early, but once Sande got him to the outside, the race was theirs. They won comfortably by two lengths.

The Belmont brought on Whichone, who had defeated Gallant Fox as a 2-year-old. Whichone went off as the 4-5 favorite, but Gallant Fox beat him by three lengths in a four-horse field.

A FOX SEQUEL

From Gallant Fox’s first crop of offspring came Omaha, the Triple Crown champion in 1935.

In the hands of the legendary Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, Omaha was almost as woeful a 2-year-old as Sir Barton had been, winning one of nine starts. But he started 1935 with a victory, and ran a decent third in the Wood Memorial, which was enough to send him off as the second choice, behind the filly Nellie Flag, in the Derby.

Omaha, ridden by Willie Saunders, won by 1 1/2 lengths, Nellie Flag finishing fourth.

Omaha won the Preakness by six lengths--Nellie Flag defeated only one horse--then before the Belmont, Fitzsimmons ran Omaha in the Withers, where his late run in the one-mile race left him 1 1/2 lengths short.

Omaha rebounded in the Belmont, winning by 1 1/2 lengths, giving owner William Woodward and Fitzsimmons their second Triple Crown winner.

Discovery, a 4-year-old, defeated Omaha three weeks after the Belmont, in the Brooklyn Handicap, and later was voted horse of the year. Omaha finished the year with six victories in nine starts, but Discovery won 11 of 19, eight in succession, and carried an average of 130 pounds.

THE SON ALSO RISES

A son of Man o’ War, War Admiral didn’t lose a race in eight races in 1937. He was smaller than his sire, but turned out to be his best offspring.

Under Charlie Kurtsinger, he was the favorite in the Derby and won it in front-running style, by 1 1/2 lengths. The Preakness was tougher. Pompoon put up a game fight before losing by a head.

War Admiral seldom broke well, and in the Belmont he nicked himself at the start and, after a three-length triumph in track-record time, he left a trail of blood as he made his way to the winner’s circle.

As a 4-year-old, War Admiral kept on going, but his loss to Seabiscuit in a match race at Pimlico cost him a second consecutive horse-of-the-year title.

DON’T BLINK, THERE’S WHIRLAWAY

A 25-year-old Eddie Arcaro really didn’t want to ride Whirlaway, who bolted for almost every jockey who tried him. Arcaro relented for the 1941 Derby, however, and trainer Ben Jones put a one-eyed blinker on Whirlaway, which allowed him to look inside at the rail but not to the outside fence.

Jones gave Arcaro unusual instructions for the Derby. He wanted Whirlaway to get left at the post, so he’d have horses to run at. After half a mile, they were in eighth place, more than 15 lengths off the lead. A 5-2 favorite, Whirlaway split horses on the turn and won by eight lengths.

A week later, in the Preakness, Whirlaway moved from seventh to first in a quarter of a mile and won by more than five lengths.

Then, against three opponents, Whirlaway won the Belmont by 2 1/2 lengths.

Arcaro gave all the credit to Jones.

“He was a brilliant trainer,” Arcaro said. “With Whirlaway, he took a sprinter and made him into a come-from-behind horse.”

LONGDEN’S FINEST

Count Fleet won what was called “the Streetcar Derby” in 1943. World War II was on, there was gasoline rationing and most of the Churchill Downs crowd was local, having gone to the track by trolley.

Count Fleet, at 2-5, ran a powerful race, winning by three lengths for jockey Johnny Longden.

Longden rode 6,032 winners before it was all over, but never found a horse to compare with Count Fleet.

“He was a great horse,” Longden said. “A little roguish, but he was a runner. All he wanted to do was run. If you took ahold of him, he’d bolt to the outside fence.”

Count Fleet, trained by Don Cameron, won the four-horse Preakness by eight lengths and the three-horse Belmont by 25. His cumulative margin for the Triple Crown, 36 lengths, was matched by Secretariat 30 years later.

“I didn’t have to raise the whip on him,” Longden said. “I just went along for the ride.”

His last ride on Count Fleet was in the Belmont. The colt rapped his left foreleg early in the race, resulting in a bowed tendon that ended his career.

LOOKS WERE DECEIVING

When trainer Max Hirsch first saw Assault, he didn’t think the Texas-bred was walking well enough to train. But the young horse, who had run his foot through a surveyor’s stake at King Ranch, favored the leg only when he walked or trotted. Running wasn’t a problem.

Despite winning the Wood Memorial, Assault went off at 8-1 in the 1946 Derby. In the first Derby to offer a $100,000 purse, Assault won by eight lengths.

In the Preakness, Assault went off favored for the first time in his career. Jockey Warren Mehrtens had him four lengths in front at the top of the stretch, and Lord Boswell all but made up the difference, losing by a neck.

Lord Boswell was a slight favorite in the Belmont but, after stumbling leaving the gate, Assault won by three lengths. He raced four more years, then proved to be infertile as a stallion.

A CALUMET ENCORE

Calumet Farm, which had won the Triple Crown with Whirlaway, was loaded in 1948. Among its 3-year-olds were Citation, Coaltown and the filly Bewitch. In the Derby, which drew only six horses, Citation and Coaltown ran 1-2, separated by 3 1/2 lengths.

“It was just a matter of tying on [staying in the saddle]with Citation,” Arcaro said. “Ben Jones told me before the Derby that I could go after Coaltown and get him any time I wanted, and he was right.”

The four-horse Preakness was also no contest, with Citation winning by 3 1/2 lengths. Eight horses showed up for the Belmont, and he won by eight lengths.

Citation became the first horse to earn more than $1 million. The Triple Crown races were victories 3, 4 and 6 in a 16-race winning streak that ended at Santa Anita in January 1950. Cigar matched that streak before losing at Del Mar last year.

ENDING THE DROUGHT

It had been 25 years since a Triple Crown sweep. Racing needed a dominant horse like Secretariat desperately, and the brilliant red colt revitalized the sport with a riveting performance in 1973.

He won the Derby by 2 1/2 lengths, running 1 1/4 miles in 1:59 2/5, still the record.

“Still think [sons of Bold Ruler] can’t go a mile and a quarter, guys?” asked jockey Ron Turcotte, waving a big cigar at reporters after the race.

In the Preakness, Secretariat made an electrifying move in the first turn, spurting to the front, then keelhauling the opposition to the wire for a 2 1/2-length victory. The time of 1:53 2/5 for 1 3/16 miles was another track record.

There seemed to be nothing that he could do in the Belmont to top those races. But Secretariat not only completed the sweep, he won by 31 lengths in 2:24, which broke the record by more than two seconds.

Turcotte had told trainer Lucien Laurin the night before the Belmont that he’d quit if Secretariat was beaten.

“Down the backstretch, I could hear the hoofbeats disappearing in the distance,” Turcotte said. “By the time I got to the three-quarters pole, I couldn’t hear anybody behind me. I thought maybe something had happened, that somebody had gone down or something.”

A SLEW OF TALENT

Seattle Slew, with victories in three races as a 2-year-old and all three preps for the Derby in 1977, came into Churchill Downs as a 1-2 favorite. Despite heating up in the paddock and breaking badly, he was a 1 3/4-length winner.

At Pimlico, there was a new challenger in Cormorant, and he ran with Seattle Slew for three-quarters of a mile before the colt and jockey Jean Cruguet flicked him aside, winning by 1 1/2 lengths at 2-5.

Seattle Slew was 2-5 again in the Belmont, and there was no suspense as he prevailed by four lengths.

Slew, with nine victories, was the first horse to finish the Triple Crown campaign undefeated.

“He was insane to run,” trainer Billy Turner said. “His eyes glazed over. He was not aware there was any other horse in the race. After that bad start in the Derby, he just knocked horses out of the way to make up the lost ground.”

THE AFFIRMED-ALYDAR SHOW

The Silver Charm-Free House-Captain Bodgit rivalry this year has kindled memories of how Affirmed and Alydar slugged it out in 1978.

Steve Cauthen, only 18, rode Affirmed to a 1 1/2-length victory in the Derby, but each successive race got tougher.

In the Preakness, Alydar and Jorge Velasquez moved on Affirmed sooner than they had in Louisville. The colts battled stubbornly through the stretch, with Affirmed prevailing by a neck.

A crowd of 65,417--there hasn’t been a larger Belmont turnout since--mobbed the track for the series finale. Many race-goers rank the ’78 Belmont as the best race ever run. With a mile left, Alydar went for Affirmed’s throat down the backstretch and they battled all the way around.

Alydar drew even with Affirmed at the top of the stretch, and might have even moved ahead by a whisker, but Affirmed wouldn’t quit. He finished a head in front.

“It was heartbreaking,” Velasquez said. “My horse kept trying so hard and kept coming back and kept getting beat. But we always thought he was the best. It was too bad he was born in the same year as Affirmed.”

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Triple Crown Winners

Records of the 11 Triple Crown champions:

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Horse Years Stars 1 2 3 Earnings Sir Barton 1981-20 31 13 6 5 $116,857 Gallant Fox 1929-30 17 11 3 2 328,165 Omaha 1934-36 22 9 7 2 154,755 War Admiral 1936-39 26 21 3 1 273,240 Whirlaway 1940-43 60 32 15 9 561,161 Count Fleet 1942-43 21 16 4 1 250,300 Assault 1945-50 42 18 6 7 675,470 Citation x1947-51 45 32 10 2 1,085,760 Secretariat 1972-73 21 16 3 1 1,316,808 Seattle Slew 1976-78 17 14 2 0 1,208,726 Affirmed 1977-79 29 22 5 1 2,393,818

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x-Did not race in 1949.