Word: belmont
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...quarter-century since Citation's victory, six other three-year-olds had entered the grueling Belmont with a chance of copping the crown. All, however, faltered in the race for what became known as the "Cripple Crown...
Still, going into the $150,200 Belmont Stakes, the last and longest (1½ miles) of the three classics, the strapping chestnut colt was bucking the very formidable odds of history...
Thus, as Trainer Lucien Laurin saddled up Secretariat for last week's 105th running of the Belmont, his nervous statement that the horse was "very good, very quiet, very wonderful" seemed a kind of incantation to ward off the "Belmont jinx." Something worked. Secretariat not only defied history-he rewrote it, in one of the most astonishing triumphs in horse-racing annals...
...Horse Race. Unlike Citation, who won the Belmont in a breeze over a middling field, Secretariat figured to face stiff competition from Sham, the gutsy bay colt who had finished second in the first two legs of the Triple Crown...
...still a two-horse race," said Laurin. "Our horse and Sham." So many horsemen agreed that only three other three-year-olds were entered in the race, making it the smallest Belmont field in 30 years. Johnny Campo, trainer of Twice a Prince, talked bravely of a major upset, making the familiar point that Bold Ruler, Secretariat's sire, was not known for producing horses of lasting stamina...