2024 galloping Triple Crown thread

This is so dang cool! Awesome call by Travis Stone best seats in the house telling an awesome story of a race

 

I may have been overserved tonight - which explains that VAR post.

 

A 20-horse field has to be extremely complicated, even if you've called thousands of races. Yeah, it helps to know the silks and cap colors, but Collmus was seeing many of those horses for the first time. Always impressed by the ease and fluidity in which the top announcers can go through the field on the backstretch with just a pair of binoculars -- and a photographic memory -- as an aid.

I remember a story a while back about the guy who called races for decades at Bay Meadows, Golden Gate Fields and the county fair circuit in Northern California. He said for the most part, it was the same stable of horses, owners, trainers and jockeys at every meet. In addition, depending on the dollar amount of the claiming race, the same set of horses would run every three or four days.

So he'd have an advance copy of the racing card, make notations of what silks and cap colors the jockeys wore and try not to get tongue-tied on the horses with difficult names. Between each race, he'd review the field and look for any changes, like a jockey switch or new stable.

Seems like he said the worst thing was a rainy day. It made it hard to see clearly through the binoculars and the horses and jockeys turned brown from the mud.

At that point, he'd just assume Russell Baze was leading.

 

Who beat?

 

How many lengths is that behind Big Red?

 

I recorded race and it was still very exciting not knowing what was going to happen. What a photo finish, amazing. Tough luck for Sierra Leone having to go way wide. He seemed to have the most at then end but just too far to go.

 

Watch the tape again. It was a horrible call after the final turn.
He completely missed the move by Mystik Dan to take the lead.

He seemed to not even know Mystik Dan had the lead until a furlong later.
I can't remember a blown call as bad as this in the stretch run of any Derby before.

I mean, sheesh! A whole furlong later!!!

EDIT to add the video. Watch and listen from 1:35 mark to 1:58 ...

 

A whole lot. Secretariat’s time of 1:59 2/5 is almost four full seconds faster. I read somewhere that a second equals about five lengths, so you do the math.

 

Was it me or did place and show beat the shit out of each other to finish in place and show?

They run cleaner and one of them wins, right?

 

My name is Dan, the horse's name was Mystik Dan. "a hunch." Haha. Knee slapper. Shoulda thrown some down though...

 

I've read for 50 years that a second equals six lengths, so ... 20 lengths.