Horse Racing
So tell me, all you Dreamers, where else but horse racing will we find stories like Rick Dutrow's, who said he spent a year living in a barn at Aqueduct -- where life got so low that a mouse once fell into bed with him.
Whether or not you warm to Dutrow -- and some don't -- the horse he trains, Saint Liam, was a worthy winner of the $4.3 million Breeders' Cup Classic on Saturday. He left little doubt he will be voted Horse of the Year.
Let's forget for a minute that Dutrow served a 60-day suspension in June and July for an incident five years ago when one of his horses tested positive for a prohibited medication.
Let's focus instead on the good stories that Breeders' Cup day drew out: jockey Garrett Gomez receiving yesterday the Bill Shoemaker Award as the outstanding rider in this year's championship day. Gomez pulled himself from the depths of substance abuse to win these Cup races for the first time, two on the same day.
We also saw jockey Jerry Bailey winning perhaps his final Breeders' Cup race when he took the Classic on Saint Liam. Bailey has been hinting for the past few years that retirement is imminent. If this turns out to be Bailey's final season, he'll have gone out a winner of his last ride in the Classic, a race he virtually owns.
We learned that Saint Liam's owner, William K. Warren, will give half of his horse's breeding rights to a charity in Tulsa when Saint Liam retires to stud at year's end to Lane's End Farm.
Thus Dutrow, who also won the Sprint with Silver Train, could comment, as he did after winning the Classic: "That's what this game is all about. There can be some guy not doing good, even walking horses, and in two years he's going to win a big race."
Horse racing truly is all about this very theme. Ordinary guys can beat sheiks or kings if they have the right horse. The list of nobility and rulers who lost races in this Breeders' Cup was long.
As well, not one of four previous Breeders' Cup winners who tried to defend their victories Saturday was able to repeat, illustrating once more how difficult it is to win a Breeders' Cup.
The blot that minimizes some of the warmest stories, the part the public constantly finds fault with, are the periodic incidents that see some trainers set down for post-race drug positives in their horses.
Whether trainers maintain their innocence, as Dutrow does, is not the issue. The issue is the public's perception of the sport in general.
Dutrow's suspension occurred at a time when official interest in eliminating suspicion cast on the sport had reached an all-time high:
New York had begun requiring horses to go into a security barn prior to racing and Kentucky was drawing up new medication rules with greater penalties.
When Dutrow's suspension took place during this period of heightened interest, Saint Liam (not part of this) was beginning to put Dutrow's name out before the public in a more global way.
And the public has a long memory in such matters: even all the way to the Breeders' Cup.
This is why racing needs to practice vigilance and to convince bettors and fans that all is fair. Only then will sports fans think of nothing but this: that racing is the most exciting game on earth with some of the greatest stories to tell, including one about a guy who slept in a barn where a mouse fell into bed with him.
Then he won the Breeders' Cup, with a worthy horse named Saint Liam.