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California Chrome goes for the Triple Crown

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by trifectarich, Jun 7, 2014.

  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    With a night to think about it, Coburn ... got madder.

    http://espn.go.com/horse-racing/triplecrown2014/story/_/id/11051377/california-chrome-owner-steve-coburn-continues-rant-vs-triple-crown-system

    "These people nominate their horses for the Triple Crown and then they hold out two [races] and then come back and run one," Coburn told ESPN. "That would be like me at 6-2 playing basketball with a kid in a wheelchair.

    I think we're a couple of interviews away from "Let me tell you another thing about the Negro."
     
  2. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    To win the NBA Championship, you want me to beat three different teams!
     
  3. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    I know know, maybe there's a horse equivalent of playing down to your competition like when a team that should have been playing in the BCS title game but got squeezed out for whatever reason and travels to Squirtsville to play TCU in the Cromulence Bowl.

    CC could have been like, "Vicar's in Trouble and Samraat ... again?" and not brought his A-game to Belmont.
     
  4. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    The Triple Crown should institute a $10 million entry fee which qualifies a horse to run in all three races, with a $3 million per race rebate for each race they actually enter.

    Conditional refund credits could be given for horses judged by veterinarians unfit to race -- probably with a mandatory 120-day suspension for any horses claiming medical exemption.
     
  5. Vombatus

    Vombatus Well-Known Member

    Quite a bit of merit to this idea. What are entry fees like now?
     
  6. armageddon

    armageddon Active Member

    For me the classy response would be to congratulate the horse/owner that just beat my ass like a drum and, if you choose, then express any concerns about the system in a calm and rationale manner without using name-calling.

    This guy made even the most petulant 5-year old appear calm and mature by comparison.

    No one cheated the system because the system, which has been in place for years, allows owners to choose to run in 1, 2 or all 3 of the races.

    You foolishly tried to argue journalists should be OK with the response because it was genuinely emotional. As a journalist I love it when owners/players offer raw responses. But that doesn't prohibit me from analyzing or critiquing those responses.
     
  7. Captain_Kirk

    Captain_Kirk Well-Known Member

    Someon might want to point out to Mr. Coburn that one of the horses that bested Chrome yesterday (Medal Count) did in fact run in the Derby.
     
  8. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Also lost in the post-race brouhaha about Coburn's rant was the fact that Espinoza rode a very stupid race.

    He allowed himself to get boxed in on the rail for far too long, then when he finally tried to make a move, he swung way out wide, too many horses to pass and too much additional ground to cover.

    At about the 3/4 mile mark he should have tried to make an inside move, move up into 2nd or 3rd and only a couple horses off the rail.

    Instead he ended up behind a traffic jam and tried to swing to the outside to go around all of them. In essence he was forcing the horse to run a couple hundred more yards.
     
  9. steveu

    steveu Well-Known Member

    I actually think along the same lines. If you think you have a great horse, then run it in all three races. Don't just enter it in the Belmont as a potential spoiler for the favorite.

    But you don't go on a rant five minutes after losing the race. You look petulant, whiny and spoiled. To paraphrase Dean Wormer, that's no way to go through life, son.
     
  10. armageddon

    armageddon Active Member

    True, though the tool would point out that the owners of Medal Count were cowards for skipping the Preakness.

    But so long as the response is genuinely emotional journalists everywhere should be grateful and avoid critiquing the content of the commentary.
     
  11. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    I have no problem with Coburn speaking his mind. Was livelier than the typical interview.

    Just not sure that I agree with his premise. Each of the races is unique. If you ran the Kentucky Derby again tomorrow, you might get a different winner. California Chrome won on that day and he lost yesterday. That's the nature of sports and why the Triple Crown is such a rare and admirable accomplishment. If you start rigging the rules in an attempt to create more Triple Crown winners, wouldn't that diminish the feat of the horses that did it the hard way?

    And we'll never see another Secretariat.
     
  12. armageddon

    armageddon Active Member

    Not a huge fan of Doyel's work but he details today how other horses that won the Triple Crown faced the same "obstacle."

    That group includes Secretariat. Sham was the lone horse in the Belmont field that had run the Derby and Preakness.

    And 41 years later I still get chills watching the video of Secretariat crushing that field.
     
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