American Pharoah: Hail and farewell

November 1, 2015

Maybe now all the naysayers will zip their lips.

Or maybe they will unseal them long enough to say, “All hail, the Pharoah” as he gallops off to retirement, to stud, to immortality.

American Pharoah did it in Hollywood-scripted style – entering and winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the first Triple Crown winner to do so, at Keeneland in Lexington on Halloween, a treat for racing fans. But then, AP has been a treat for all those lovers of history who had a Triple Crown winner on their bucket list and thought they would never live to see the day. ...

American Pharoah, Novak Djokovic: What defines greatness?

October 28, 2015

American Pharoah has arrived at Keeneland in Lexington for the Breeders’ Cup Classic Saturday, the final race of his career. He’s going to face an older woman, Beholder; older guys like Tonalist and Honor Code; and old rivals like Frosted and Keen Ice.

But hey, is that any worse than the naysayers, the ones who remark that he’s good but not great – certainly not as great as the greats of the 1970s, Secretariat, Seattle Slew and my beloved Affirmed; and, that if he doesn’t win the Breeders’ Cup, he really won’t be considered great.

This is the same conversation about Novak Djokovic, who will lead the field at the BNP Paribas Masters Paris, which begins also on Saturday and runs through Nov. 8. If he doesn’t repeat in Paris and at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London the following week, he won’t have had a great season.

Let’s review, shall we? ...

The fault in our stars? More thoughts on California Chrome and the ‘unfairness’ of life

June 9, 2014

So Cinderella turned out to be just as unpalatable as her stepsisters. By that I mean that the world is a little less enamored of Steve Coburn since he started crying foul – repeatedly – after his horse, California Chrome, lost his Triple Crown bid at the Belmont Stakes to Tonalist, who didn’t run in the Kentucky Derby or Preakness.

I never thought Coburn and the partner were interesting. I mean, how classy can you be when you name your venture Dumb Ass Partners? No, what was fascinating, beautiful, a dream, was that bright as a penny of a horse with his blaze and four white socks and curiosity about us two-legged types and poise and smarts and heart and in the end, none of it was enough.

And that’s heartbreaking but such is life. I still agree with Coburn, though, that it isn’t fair to come into the Belmont all fresh as a daisy and play spoiler. And I see that plenty in the blogosphere were thinking what I was thinking: You have to play every round of the French Open to get to the final.

The end of a California (Chrome) dream

June 8, 2014

How is it that you can fall in love with someone you don’t know?

What if that someone were a horse?

Millions of us fell in love with California Chrome these past few weeks and millions of us got our hearts broken as he finished out of the money in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, which increasingly seems to be won by a horse you don’t care about. This year it was Tonalist, who didn’t run in the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness. He’s named for an art principle. (In more than 30 years covering the arts, I never once used the term tonalism. Let’s just admit it’s a pretentious name, and leave it at that, shall we?)

Anyway, CC’s more voluble owner, Steve Coburn, did Chromies no favors...