THE VENERATED SPORTSWRITER Red Smith once famously offered these directions to Saratoga Race Course: “From New York City, you drive north for about 175 miles, turn left on Union Avenue and go back 100 years.” With the Victorian charm of its old wooden clubhouse, its quaint candy-striped awnings, and its cozy elm-shaded paddock, Saratoga transports everyone back to a bygone era when blue-blooded swells fashionably came to the races in horse-drawn carriages. The oldest and most storied sporting venue in America, the timeless track had opened during the bloodiest throes of the Civil War—in August of 1863, just a month after the Battle of Gettysburg—and then got stuck in a time warp of straw boaters and Dixieland bands.
For all the tradition and nostalgia steeping its hallowed grounds, however, the spotlight during Saratoga’s racing season has forever focused not on the past but firmly on the future. By night, the rich and famous bid millions in the nation’s premier yearling sale to buy horseflesh and hopes; and by day, at the track where they rub shoulders with two-dollar horseplayers in a curious mingling of high society and low culture, all binoculars are on the lookout for that special two-year-old capable of inspiring Derby dreams. It’s no coincidence that the grand finale of Saratoga’s annual summer meeting is not its marquee stakes for established stars, but rather its most prestigious featured race for two-year-old hopefuls. This is the only stakes race not named after a horse, a person, a place, or a thing. Instead, it is named for a feeling, for the passion shared by anyone who has ever bred or bought a young Thoroughbred: the Hopeful.
On the last Saturday in August 1977, as the dawn broke over the spa town and the morning mist hung over the track and shrouded the Victorian spires of its creaky wooden grandstand, no one had higher hopes than John Veitch.
The Calumet trainer had been very much looking forward to the seventy-third running of the Hopeful Stakes. Over the past several months, Alydar had grown a little taller and had put on even more muscle. The colt had won the Sapling decisively and was looking strong in his morning works. Even more in his favor was the fact that the Hopeful would be a step up at six and a half furlongs. That extra half a furlong might work to Alydar’s advantage. Veitch had always expected his big colt’s performance to improve with increasing distance. Now, on the morning of the race, the trainer figured he had done all he could to prepare his blossoming star for the big time.
For Affirmed, the Hopeful represented a step up not only in distance, but also in class. This was his first foray into the top tier of stakes races: Grade I, the highest level of events designated for superior racing stock. Alydar had already broken through to win a Grade I stakes race with the Sapling. Now Affirmed, fresh off his win in the Grade II Sanford, was ready to join Alydar in taking their first big step on the road to the Kentucky Derby, the grandest Grade I race of them all. The star-studded roster of future legends that had proclaimed their coming of age by winning the Hopeful as two-year-olds boasted the likes of Man o’ War, Whirlaway, Native Dancer, Nashua, and, just five years earlier, Secretariat. Not even those who breathlessly touted Alydar as the second coming of Secretariat were quite ready to put him in that fast company just yet. If handicapping horses is considered a fool’s game, nowhere is that more true than with the green two-year-olds who are the least predictable of all. By the time the bettors had spoken, Alydar was sent to the post as the even-money favorite, with Affirmed the 5-to-2 second choice.
Patrice Wolfson watched, with trepidation, as Steve Cauthen rode Affirmed onto the track with the four other colts in the post parade. This was the first time he would face Alydar since the Great American, and though her colt had improved greatly since then, the racing world was abuzz with talk of the Calumet star and how he was already a sure Derby contender.
Aside from their chestnut color, the two colts couldn’t have looked more different as they took their positions in the starting gate. To Patrice, it seemed as if Affirmed, who always had looked a little light, had gotten even smaller as he lowered himself, head down, awaiting the bell. In contrast, Alydar looked huge in the gate, standing alert on the inside post position, puffing himself up.
At the break, Alydar swerved into Tilt Up, who in turn bumped Darby Creek Road. Jockey Eddie Maple had no choice but to settle Alydar into his usual spot at the back of the pack, while Affirmed broke cleanly to the lead on the outside. The pace was fast enough that Cauthen chose to rate Affirmed and let Tilt Up and Darby Creek Road pass going into the backstretch, content to just stay close and bide his time around the turn. Correctly figuring that Alydar was about to challenge the frontrunners coming off the turn, Cauthen asked Affirmed to gradually pick up the pace and start making a move of his own. As they thundered down the stretch, Cauthen was struck by how Affirmed “looked the leader in the eye and just went on.” With an eighth of a mile to go, Affirmed blew past Tilt Up, Alydar in hot pursuit. The two chestnuts powered away from the field as a team: Affirmed keeping a head just in front, Alydar driving hard on the far outside. With a sixteenth to go, Cauthen tapped Affirmed on the shoulder and felt the colt surge forward “like he was shot out of a cannon.” Glancing over, the jockey was stunned to see Alydar and Maple accelerating right along with them. But Affirmed dug in and inched away from his rival to win by half a length in a stakes-record 1:152/5, less than half a second off the track record.
As he made his way to the winner’s circle, Cauthen reflected on what had just happened. The “rocket ship” acceleration he had felt on Affirmed was like nothing he’d ever experienced on any of his previous two thousand mounts. He knew he’d found a “special” horse. “I’m never giving up this horse,” he said to himself as they hit the winner’s circle.
Waiting for them there was a beaming Patrice. She was ecstatic that her boy had won, but what made this triumph resonate even more deeply was the memory of how her Hail To Reason had romped off with the same race seventeen years earlier. This was such a heartfelt moment that she really pushed for her husband to join her in the winner’s circle for the first time. Lou resisted for a bit because he didn’t like being the center of attention, but eventually she prevailed. She took his concession as a sign both of his love for her and of his admiration for what their little horse had just accomplished. Affirmed had proven that he could hold his own and that he had heart. Patrice and Lou both realized now that he might be a very special horse.
Laz Barrera, too, thought he might have a budding star. Until now, Affirmed had been so anonymous that even his own trainer kept confusing him with a three-year-old stablemate named Affiliate. “All the time I find myself entering Affiliate in a stakes race that Affirmed belongs in, or writing down ‘Affirmed’ when I mean ‘Affiliate,’ ” he complained. For that, he could blame Patrice’s penchant for naming horses after her mother’s beloved Affectionately. Watching Affirmed leave the winner’s circle after the Hopeful, Barrera told a reporter, “Steve Cauthen rode this horse like he was born on him. Affiliate was named the outstanding two-year-old of the Hollywood Park meeting and now, with this win, he has to be the best two-year-old anywhere.” Barrera paused, catching himself, and shook his head. “Dammit,” he sighed, “this isn’t Affiliate—it’s Affirmed!”
IF AFFIRMED HAD just gone a long way toward finally making a name for himself, he still needed to prove that the Hopeful upset wasn’t just a fluke. He would have to wait only two weeks to get the chance—in a rematch with Alydar in the Futurity Stakes at Belmont Park. This time, having won two of their three meetings in what was already being hyped by turf writers as a real rivalry, Affirmed would go to the post as the favorite, at 6-to-5.
With Alydar the second betting choice at 3-to-2, an underdog for the first time in his seven career starts, John Veitch was feeling the pressure. The only consolation the trainer could take from the Hopeful defeat was that Saratoga had also been the setting for the only loss of Man o’ War’s storied career—to a fellow two-year-old aptly named Upset. But that didn’t soothe any of his disappointment or angst. When Veitch reviewed the Hopeful with Maple, the jockey voiced his concern about Alydar’s refusal to switch leads in his races despite the fact that he always did so when asked in the morning. Maple was concerned that Alydar would tire if he spent the entire race on one lead. With the Belmont Futurity representing another step up at seven furlongs, the jockey was especially eager to fix the problem before it became a bigger issue as the races on the road to the Derby incrementally lengthened.
“This horse is not going to run as good as he can without switching leads,” Maple warned Veitch.
The trainer dismissively countered that there was plenty of time to work on the problem before the Derby. “He’ll switch the first Saturday in May,” Veitch said curtly.
Veitch was far more concerned with the second Saturday in September. For the Belmont Futurity, as in their last showdown, the two rivals had scared away all but three other competitors. This time, however, the contest was being billed as a match race right from the start, with Alydar drawing the inside post position 1 and Affirmed right next to him in 2.
“Don’t worry about being on the lead,” Barrera told Cauthen while hoisting the jockey into the saddle. “Wait for Number One.”
Following the trainer’s instructions and his own patient riding style, Cauthen rated Affirmed after breaking sharply and tucked him into second up the backstretch behind the longshot Rough Sea, with Maple steadily moving Alydar from his usual last-place start up to third. Heading into the turn, Cauthen decided to send Affirmed to the lead on the rail. Maple responded instantly by making a move of his own, easing Alydar off the rail and roaring up alongside Affirmed. As they swung through the turn, the two colts battled for the lead—Affirmed driving on the inside, Alydar glued to his right shoulder, the rest of the field fading behind in their wake. At the top of the homestretch, Alydar poked his head in front. But Affirmed would have none of it and dug in. He accelerated, drew even, and then pushed his head back in front. Thundering down the stretch, the colts dueled for the lead, Alydar surging, then Affirmed answering as the finish line loomed closer. In one last desperate attempt, Alydar lunged for the line. The two colts crossed under the wire together, eleven lengths clear of their closest pursuer, and it took a photo finish to determine that Affirmed had held on to beat Alydar by a scant nose.
Patrice felt a warm glow of pride and happiness as she and Lou made their way down from their box to the track. To Patrice’s surprise, Lou, overcome by the moment, stepped up to their colt, took the lead shank from the groom, and proudly led Affirmed into the winner’s circle. For the first time, the Wolfsons were allowing themselves to think that maybe, just maybe, they had a Derby horse. Affirmed and Cauthen were each celebrating a personal milestone: the first career victory in a $100,000 race. “Affirmed never gave up, even though he was headed,” Cauthen marveled.
“He’s a fighter,” Barrera agreed. “I wasn’t worried when he was headed because he runs best with a horse alongside him. The other horse is a fighter, too. They were like Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.”
The race was a huge blow to John Veitch, who felt like a prizefighter reeling from a one-two combination. Having lost two straight showdowns to Affirmed and three of their four meetings, the trainer needed a counterpunch. He was still sure he had the best two-year-old in America, but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Though he had tried just about everything he had learned over the years, his colt was still coming up short. As Veitch mulled it over, he realized there was one option he hadn’t yet explored: a jockey change. Perhaps with a stronger and more aggressive rider, Alydar might be able to summon that little bit of extra drive he would need to turn the tables on Affirmed.
Veitch reached out to a jockey who already knew Alydar well: Jorge Velasquez.
BACK IN PANAMA, Jorge Velasquez had grown up dirt poor in Chepo, a small farming town thirty miles northeast of Panama City. With his parents having separated before he was a year old, the boy was raised by his father’s sister, Francisca, in a house with dirt floors, bamboo walls, and a thatched roof. Jorge was barely eight when he started working full-time in the fields, picking beans and tomatoes for up to a dollar a day. When he got a job four years later as a delivery boy for a bakery that paid him not in cash but in bread, it was the first time he could remember no longer going to sleep hungry. He had just turned thirteen when a friend suggested that he use his diminutive size—five foot three and one hundred pounds—as a ticket out of poverty by becoming a jockey.
When he told his family about the idea of taking up a perilous sport that was notoriously rougher in Panama than in America, his Aunt Francisca—the adoptive mother to whom he’d grown very close—hit him over the head with a pot. Undaunted, young Jorge resolved to ride races “as a way to get my family out of poverty.” He moved to Panama City and worked a few months in his father’s butcher shop before finally landing a job with a trainer at the tiny country’s lone racetrack, the Hipόdromo Presidente Remόn. On the backside of the Panama City track, Jorge spent long days working for nothing but the experience—and devoting himself to learning the jockey’s trade.
The government had just set up a jockey school at the track as part of its vocational training program, and Jorge immediately signed up. Running the school was an old ex-jockey named Bolivar Moreno, who would conduct classes in the stables for about a dozen boys. “He’s a good teacher,” Jorge decided, breaking into a smile, “but he’d be better if he have horses.” In this novel jockey school without horses, Moreno would have his pupils sit astride barrels, holding makeshift reins and putting their feet in makeshift stirrups all fashioned out of rope. On those barrels, Jorge and his classmates learned the basics of their chosen craft—how to keep low, how to use the whip, how to hand-ride, and all the other necessary techniques in a curriculum that Moreno based on Eddie Arcaro’s five-part 1957 Sports Illustrated series titled “The Art of Race Riding.” Once the students had gotten the hang of it, they would ride simulated races on their barrels during which the professor would bark instructions like a track announcer: “We’re going into the gate now. . . . It’s going to be three-quarters of a mile. . . . Now you’re breaking out of there. . . . Rate the first part. . . . And sprint the last quarter. . . .”
While awaiting the opportunity to try out those lessons in a real race, all the students worked long hours on the backside—mucking stalls, walking hots, grooming and feeding horses. Since they received no pay for all their labors, Jorge had to make ends meet by pitching pennies, eventually becoming so skilled that he could win two or three dollars a day. After the trainer he worked for gave him a broken-down racehorse to ride and care for, Jorge went from barn to barn panhandling hay and oats for the big bay with the bad leg. “He got leftovers,” Jorge would later recall, “but I learned to ride on that horse.” Hungry in every sense of the word and determined to get ahead, Jorge and the other aspiring jockeys all hustled trainers for a chance to gallop horses in the mornings. Not that any amount of exercising horses could prepare them for the trial by fire that was racing in Panama, a throwback to America’s Wild West ride-’em-cowboy days before patrol cameras and eagle-eyed stewards began scrutinizing races for jockey infractions.
Upon turning sixteen, Jorge Velasquez was finally old enough to get his apprentice jockey’s license. But he had such trouble getting any mounts at the Hipόdromo that he considered quitting and crawling home to Aunt Francisca in Chepo. When he finally did convince a trainer to give him a shot, Velasquez demonstrated in his first race just how green he was. Early in the race, his mount was dawdling so much that a passing jockey glanced over, noticed loosely flapping reins, and actually yelled at him, “Boy, pick up the reins!” Velasquez shortened his reins, connecting with his mount’s mouth for the first time. The horse grabbed the bit and took off. That was exactly the kind of on-the-job training Velasquez needed, though in future races he would have to do it without any professional courtesy from opposing jockeys.
Panama was notorious for being a brutally tough training ground. The only break an apprentice like Velasquez got was that every few days the card included one race restricted only to rookies—although, as it turned out, those events were the roughest of all, pitting the jockey school graduates against one another in showdowns to weed out all but the wiliest and hungriest of them. From that Darwinian crucible, it was Velasquez who emerged as the track’s sensation of 1963, breaking all of Braulio Baeza’s apprentice records.
Just before Velasquez had arrived at the track for its jockey school two years earlier, Baeza had left to ride in the United States—the latest in a growing line of Panamanian jockeys to flourish in The Land of Opportunity. In the mid-1950s, Manny Ycaza had paved the way for the Panamanian invasion with a flourish, captivating American railbirds with a flashy charisma, a fiery temper, and a reckless style that earned him not only numerous stakes wins but also record suspensions for rough riding. Baeza introduced Americans to the exact opposite type of Panamanian rider—from his stately ramrod-straight erectness in the saddle during the post parade to his icy-cool countenance and his smooth, rhythmic style as he rode to the top of the U.S. racing charts. After he had been hired by the venerable Florida owner Fred Hooper and left for America’s greener pastures in 1960, Baeza became the role model Velasquez emulated for his dignified character: quiet, businesslike, compassionate.
Velasquez also copied Baeza’s success on the track, riding 347 winners in three years during Panama’s short 150-day racing seasons and making $500 a week. Having survived that trial by fire, he longed for the chance to try his luck and skill in the United States, where the homegrown jockeys as a group lacked the burning desire that drove the young Panamanians’ hunger for wealth and fame.
In the summer of 1965, Ramon Navarro, the Panamanian trainer who had first tipped Hooper on Baeza, did the same for Velasquez. Hooper imported Velasquez to the United States and set him up as a contract rider based in New Jersey. Only nineteen, Velasquez wasted little time establishing himself as the dominant jockey on the Jersey racing circuit. In 1966, his first full season there, he won 300 races to rank second among all jockeys in North America and then proclaimed to his agent, “I want to be the leading rider of America.” True to his desire, he then went out and racked up 438 winners to top the 1967 list. Though Velasquez longed to prove himself against stiffer competition, Hooper insisted that his jockey continue to ride in New Jersey. The day after their three-year contract expired, Velasquez packed up his tack and headed for New York to test himself against the best.
It didn’t take long for Jorge Velasquez to make a name for himself on New York’s Big Wheel. He instantly developed a reputation for winning photo finishes. “The secret to the photo finish,” he explained, “is to have the nerves to wait until the last sixteenth of a mile. Patience, patience. Wait, wait. Every rider knows where the finish line is, but the trick is to give your horse that push exactly at the right time—just when he hits the line. You give him the last push, you give him his head, and he drops it down on the wire. The horse with his head down crossing the finish line usually gets the picture.”
During his first full season in New York, Velasquez was in the picture enough to lead all jockeys nationally on the 1969 money list with $2,542,315 in purse earnings—surpassing the five-time reigning champion, Braulio Baeza himself. It’s telling that the next year Velasquez would be supplanted by yet another countryman: Laffit Pincay Jr., who would go on to top the money list the following four years, eventually break Willie Shoemaker’s all-time record for career winners with 9,530, and have the Panama City jockey school named after him as its most successful graduate. Pincay, like Baeza the son of a jockey, was one day younger than Velasquez, and the two teens had been classmates for a couple of years at the jockey school. Clearly, nothing got lost in the translation of the school’s motto from Spanish: “Panama is the cradle of the best jockeys in the world.”
As their underdeveloped country of barely a million citizens started to dominate the U.S. jockey standings, Velasquez and Pincay together were now leading the latest tidal wave of the Panamanian invasion. Pincay, who like Velasquez and Baeza before him was imported to the United States by Hooper after a tip from Navarro, would rival Shoemaker for supremacy on the West Coast. At the same time, Velasquez would quietly rival the flashy Angel Cordero for East Coast supremacy.
When Velasquez first came to New York during the summer of 1968, he stayed at Cordero’s Queens home for months while acclimating to the culture shock of the Big Apple and the Big Wheel. Comfortably settling in to the lifestyle and Americanizing the pronunciation of Jorge from “Hor-hay” to “George,” Velasquez found himself at the top of his game and his profession.
In many circles, he was regarded as the finest craftsman riding in the United States. While other great jockeys each possessed a signature skill—Shoemaker’s touch, Pincay’s strength, Cordero’s aggressiveness—Velasquez personified what horsemen call “a complete rider.” He was good at everything, the consummate technician and tactician. Between 1971 and 1976, he reigned as the leading New York rider four times, winning the Triple Tiara for three-year-old fillies aboard Chris Evert in 1974. All of which earned him a place of honor in the jockeys’ room at Belmont and Aqueduct: a corner locker that was the equivalent of a senior executive’s corner office.
That’s where he was, late in the fall of 1976, when a sixteen- year-old apprentice named Steve Cauthen first entered the jocks’ room at The Big A and soon received the honor of an end locker catty- cornered from Velasquez’s. “In the jockeys’ room,” Cauthen would recall, “Georgie was in the corner opposite the valet I ended up with; I had Sully, and he had Reno. Georgie took me under his wing right from the beginning. He was always very friendly. There’s a camaraderie in the room among pretty much everybody, but there’s guys you feel drawn to, and I felt a friendship and closeness with Georgie because he was nice to me. I felt accepted right from day one.”
For his part, Velasquez marveled at how maturely “Stevie” handled New York’s fiercer competition right from the start and how humbly he handled the spotlight that was soon thrust on him during his record-smashing winter. Minutes after Cauthen won a stakes race for the first time just two weeks into his Big Apple introduction, Velasquez and Cordero, the star veterans he most admired, made a mock presentation of helmet and goggles to him for beating their favorites on a longshot. Before long, Cauthen would be demolishing Velasquez’s New York record of 299 winners in a year as well as Cordero’s national record of $4.7 million in annual purse earnings.
“How can you deny a guy like Stevie?” Velasquez would say with a shrug and a welcoming smile. “You’ve got to take him under your wing. He respects people and pays attention, and he learns fast. And I was thrilled to have him in the room because soon all the cameras and everyone were following him instead of following me all the time.”
Fourteen years Cauthen’s senior at the age of thirty, Velasquez went from being a role model to being a mentor. They developed a fast friendship that did nothing to diminish their fierce competitiveness on the track. In the jocks’ room, where they liked to pass the downtime in the mornings by playing spirited games of Ping-Pong, Cauthen was no match for Velasquez. On the track at Aqueduct, though, Cauthen was running away with the New York jockey standings at the expense of the defending champion.
Not long afterward, on the opening day of Belmont’s 1977 spring meeting, Velasquez again found himself following Cauthen, this time into the stretch of the fateful race that would end horrifically and interrupt both of their seasons. It all happened so quickly that Velasquez had no chance to react. He saw Cauthen’s horse, Bay Streak, suddenly go down, and before Velasquez knew it, his own mount, Volney, smashed into Bay Streak and crashed to the turf. As it was happening, all Velasquez’s mind had time to do was to invoke the patron saint of his Chepo hometown in Panama: “Aye! San Cristobal! Protect me!” Knocked unconscious, he would be unaware how lucky he was that the horse behind him narrowly missed crushing him while crashing over Volney. Velasquez and Cauthen would be rushed to the hospital with concussions and broken bones. One of the first questions Cauthen asked the emergency room doctors was about the condition of Velasquez, who was having his broken ankle and heel set in a cast before being discharged while the youngster was admitted to the hospital’s pediatric ward for two days.
If not for the gruesome spill that linked them in the headlines, serendipity would have put Cauthen on Affirmed and Velasquez on Alydar right from the start of both horses’ racing careers. But as fate would have it, their respective injuries precluded Cauthen from riding Affirmed’s first race and Velasquez from riding Alydar’s.
Not long before the spill, John Veitch had called Velasquez’s agent and asked whether his client could come out to Belmont early one morning to work Alydar because the trainer already thought this was his Derby horse and he wanted the jockey’s opinion. Velasquez jumped at the chance to breeze Calumet’s great chestnut hope for three furlongs. Starting behind three other colts, Alydar flew right by them and, even more impressive to Velasquez, felt as if he was doing it easily and effortlessly. Afterward, the jockey came back and told Veitch, “This is our Derby horse. I like him very much.”
Velasquez started getting on his new “Derby horse” every morning at Belmont. “Before we went out on the track,” he would fondly recall, “I’d let him stop and look around and watch the horses going by galloping and working. And when he was ready, he’d turn his head, open his mouth, and I’d drop a sugar in his mouth. Then he’d drop his head and we’d go to work. Every time he was being cooled off in the shed row while I was coming back from working other horses and he heard my voice, he would drag the hot-walker around to where I was, looking for sugar.”
One morning, Velasquez brought his wife, Margarita, to see his new Derby horse. “He’s crazy about me,” the jockey beamed to her like a proud father. As they got out of the car, Velasquez started calling out to the big colt from behind a tree near the barn. “Hey, Champ!” the jockey yelled, jumping the gun somewhat in his pet name for a horse who had yet to run a single race. Looking around but unable to locate the source of the disembodied voice, Alydar started bucking and kicking. Hearing the commotion, Veitch emerged from the barn, spotted Velasquez, and told him he’d better come from behind the trees before Alydar hurt himself.
In just a few short weeks, Velasquez felt he and the horse had already “developed a nice, close relationship,” and he was looking forward to riding Alydar’s first race. But the broken ankle sidelined Velasquez until just six days before Alydar’s debut, by which time the mount had already gone to Eddie Maple. Velasquez could only watch, wistfully, as Maple rode Alydar in the colt’s first seven races.
In the meantime, Velasquez could at least console himself by riding Alydar’s older half sister, Our Mims. With Calumet’s star filly mired in a four-race losing streak going into the summer, Veitch decided to switch jockeys and put the crafty Panamanian aboard Our Mims. Velasquez rode the big bay to three major stakes wins, virtually locking up the 1977 three-year-old filly championship by Labor Day. Once Veitch decided it was to time to make a similar jockey change on Alydar, there was never any doubt whom he would tap. He called Velasquez’s agent and offered the coveted mount.
Better late than never, destiny had been fulfilled: the two jockeys who were supposed to start the horses in the spring now finally would both be in the irons squaring off for the first time—in a fall showdown in the biggest juvenile race of the year, the Champagne Stakes.
JUST AS THE rivalry was starting to heat up, Lou Wolfson tried to pour cold water on it. As far as he was concerned, the budding rivalry should have ended right after Affirmed outdueled Alydar by a nostril in the nail-biting Belmont Futurity. “I was satisfied that Affirmed was the better horse, and I didn’t think these two good colts should keep racing against each other,” he explained. So he hatched a takeover plan to purchase Alydar from Calumet and run him in different races than Affirmed. He asked Leslie Combs, the renowned syndicator who owned Spendthrift Farm, if Alydar could be bought. Combs said he would find out from the Markeys, with whom he was close friends. “Go ahead and pay any price you want to pay,” Wolfson instructed Combs, “and I’ll take any part of the colt you want me to.” Combs called him back with bad news: the Markeys weren’t interested in selling, at any price. The Affirmed-Alydar rivalry was now an unstoppable force shifting into high gear.
By the fall of 1977, not even the crustiest of old-timers could recall any rivalry this heated between two-year-olds. Scouring their memories and the record books, the closest that turf historians could come were the three 1930 showdowns between Equipoise, the dark chestnut nicknamed “The Chocolate Soldier,” and Twenty Grand at the dawn of the Great Depression. Half a century after waging two of the most rousing stretch duels in the annals of racing, that pair of future Hall of Famers had nothing on Affirmed and Alydar. Never before had two such brilliant two-year-olds as Affirmed and Alydar, both clearly superior to all their contemporaries, hooked up in so many thrilling head-to-head battles.
Their fifth meeting, in the Champagne Stakes, figured to be yet another one. The richest race for two-year-olds at $134,000, the Champagne represented a step up to a mile for both rivals. But more than that, it was, for Affirmed, a chance to lock up the juvenile championship and, for Alydar, a shot at redemption.
It was a cloudy, damp mid-October day, and the track at Belmont was sloppy from a rainstorm that had passed through in the morning. Both Affirmed, once again a 6-to-5 favorite, and Alydar, a 3-to-2 second choice, were calm as their teams got them ready in the saddling stalls. After hoisting Velasquez up onto Alydar’s back, Veitch gave the jockey some last-minute instructions on how to deal with Affirmed. “I don’t think you can sneak up on this horse,” the trainer said. “You’ve got to put yourself in a position where you can just overwhelm him.”
At the bell, Affirmed once again broke sharply and then settled back in third while Alydar tucked in fifth. Both bided their time up the backstretch and around the turn until Darby Creek Road began to make a move, swinging around to the outside. Cauthen, too, asked Affirmed to move up, and as the leaders came out of the turn four abreast, the pace quickened. At the top of the stretch, Affirmed surged into the lead, with Darby Creek Road at his hip challenging. Affirmed had his right ear turned toward Darby Creek Road, making sure the challenger couldn’t get past him. Fifty feet from the wire, both Affirmed and his rider were stunned to see Alydar, all a blur, blowing by them on the far outside. It was too late for either Affirmed or Cauthen to respond. Alydar flew on to win going away by a length and a quarter.
Despite Veitch’s instructions, Velasquez had done what the trainer said couldn’t be done: the jockey had indeed snuck up on Affirmed. In the middle of the stretch, Velasquez had pulled Alydar wide from the rail so that he would have room to pass the wall of four horses. Once Velasquez had a clear view to the finish line, he asked Alydar to pour it on and the colt had responded. Affirmed and Cauthen never knew what hit them. “My horse had plenty left,” Cauthen would lament afterward, “but he was so busy playing games with Darby Creek Road he never even saw Alydar until it was too late.” In Cauthen’s mind, it was an aberration. He was still riding the best horse.
Lou Wolfson wasn’t so sure. Moments after the race, he turned to Patrice and said, “Sugar, I don’t know about your little guy. I don’t think he’s going to be the horse you think he is.” Defending her pet, Patrice rattled off a list of excuses, from the muddy track to the sneak attack. Lou shook his head, unwilling to rationalize away a loss. But Patrice wasn’t about to let one race change her mind. She turned to Lou and said firmly, “You just wait.”
Back at the Calumet barn, Veitch was ecstatic. He was sure he had finally found the winning formula: the right jockey, the right blinkers, the right training regimen. After winning the race that had determined the two-year-old champion for each of the previous thirteen years, Alydar was now the odds-on favorite for the 1977 award without having to run another step. Veitch could have ended the season then and there. But he wanted another shot at Affirmed, who had won three out of their five meetings. Veitch wanted to even up the score and to prove that the Champagne wasn’t a fluke.
Before Alydar could even be cooled out, Veitch announced that he would enter the colt in the Laurel Futurity two weeks later. “Not with the idea of helping our chance to win the championship, but to give him more experience,” he explained. “He’ll need all he can get next year.” The trainer wanted to make sure that Affirmed was going to show up, so he threw down the gauntlet. “They’re both equally good colts,” he said, “but I would think that if [Barrera] wants the title, he has to go to Laurel and run against us again.”
When reporters relayed that challenge to Barrera’s barn minutes later, Affirmed’s trainer made an immediate change in plans. He had indicated beforehand that the Champagne probably would end Affirmed’s 1977 campaign, but now he was ready to pick up the gauntlet.
“If he goes to Laurel, I go.”
WHEN AFFIRMED AND Barrera showed up at Laurel Race Course in suburban Baltimore, Alydar and Veitch were waiting and primed. On the strength of Alydar’s dominating Champagne finish, bettors had restored him to his favorite’s role, at 2-to-5, with Affirmed the second choice in the four-horse field at 7-to-5. In the Laurel Futurity, the two rivals would battle not only to win a stakes race but also to determine the 1977 two-year-old championship.
Veitch was sure the added distance—the Futurity would be both colts’ first race around two turns, at a mile and a sixteenth—made Alydar an even stronger choice. At the prerace press conference the day before the main event, he was so confident he was even willing to announce his strategy to Barrera and the world.
“When you’re going against a good horse,” Veitch proclaimed, “you don’t dog ’em and wear them down. You slug ’em and hit them over the head.”
Barrera shot a look at Veitch and retorted, “He’s not going to come out of the back and hit me over the head no more, because I’m going to wait for him.”
In the paddock on race day, after cautioning Cauthen to keep track of where Alydar was every second of the race, Barrera gave his jockey the final instructions: rate Affirmed in the early going, wait for Alydar’s inevitable charge, then outduel him down the stretch.
As instructed, Cauthen settled Affirmed in second behind the leader and bided his time, while the slow-starting Alydar lingered a few lengths back. The Calumet colt gradually crept up on Affirmed along the backstretch and, on the far turn, moved up between the two frontrunners. As the three horses swept around the turn abreast, Cauthen asked his mount to pick up the pace, pushing Affirmed to the front. Velasquez decided the time was right for Alydar to make his move, and they grabbed the lead at the top of the stretch. The two colts pulled away and battled ferociously down the stretch for the lead, Velasquez hitting Alydar left-handed on the rail and Cauthen slapping Affirmed right-handed. With a sixteenth of a mile to go, Affirmed surged and put a nose back in front. As they drove toward the wire, Affirmed inched away to win by a neck.
For Barrera, Cauthen, and the Wolfsons, it was vindication. Barrera was gracious in victory. “There is never a disgrace when one of them loses,” he said. The more he would reflect on the race over the next few weeks, the more impressed he was by the heart shown by both horses. “That Laurel Futurity was one of most amazing races ever run. Anytime! Anywhere! Any country!” he would marvel. “They hook up and go at each other like a couple of fighting chickens—only there is no chicken in either of them.”
That was small consolation to Veitch. While he understood that Alydar had just run his heart out, the Laurel left Veitch with a bad taste. The only way he could think of to expunge it was to run his colt again. This time, it would be in the Remsen Stakes and there would be no Affirmed. With his nemesis already finished for the year, Alydar was sure to end his season on a positive note. But Eddie Maple and Believe It, the Derby hopeful the jockey had picked up after losing his mount on Alydar, spoiled Veitch’s plans by stunning the 3-to-5 favorite in the Remsen at Aqueduct on Thanksgiving weekend. Believe It, a colt Alydar had decisively beaten twice before, built a big early lead that the Calumet star’s one late run couldn’t overcome in his first attempt at a mile and an eighth, falling two lengths short. The four battles with Affirmed over the previous three months had obviously taken their toll. Both rivals needed a break to recharge for the upcoming road to the Derby.
RACING’S MOST COVETED prize—this side of the Kentucky Derby Gold Cup, at least—is the Eclipse Award. Named after the fabled unbeaten eighteenth-century British Thoroughbred whose bloodlines course through almost all modern-day racehorses, the Eclipse Awards honor the sport’s leading equine as well as human performers each year. Although Affirmed obviously could not attend the black-tie Eclipse Awards Dinner in a Miami hotel ballroom shortly after New Year’s, there were plenty of his human connections on hand to reap the spoils of the surprisingly strong year he had just enjoyed.
In a season when the undefeated Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew was the landslide choice for Horse of the Year, Patrice and Lou Wolfson were thrilled to accept Affirmed’s own Eclipse Award—as the champion two-year-old colt, once again outdueling Alydar. Although they fell short of the Eclipse for leading owner, having finished fourth on the earnings list in a year they sold their Ocala farm to cut their losses and liabilities, the Wolfsons took pride in other awards that evidenced the resurgence of their racing stable. Thanks largely to his handling of Harbor View horses, Laz Barrera won the Eclipse Award as America’s outstanding trainer for the second straight year, this time earning it by easily topping the money list with $2,715,848 in purses.
Team Affirmed’s biggest winner was the smallest honoree: Steve Cauthen, fresh off the most amazing year in the annals of race riding. Cauthen had won $6,151,750 in 1977 purses to obliterate the all-time earnings record by 30 percent and to garner yet another nickname: “The Six Million Dollar Boy,” an allusion to the hit TV show The Six Million Dollar Man. Despite being sidelined for a full month by injuries, he had won 487 races (including 23 stakes) to become the youngest jockey ever to top the national list. All of which earned Cauthen an unparalleled sweep of both Eclipse Awards for riding—one as the outstanding jockey, the other as the best apprentice. In addition, he won the Eclipse Award of Merit “for his inestimable and far-reaching contribution to Thoroughbred racing.”
As the truest measure of his transcendence, Cauthen was named by Sports Illustrated as the magazine’s 1977 “Sportsman of the Year”—the only horse racing figure ever so honored. Gracing his second Sports Illustrated cover of the year, he appeared noticeably more mature with his arms folded confidently across the flamingo-pink silks of Harbor View Farm. In a year when Reggie Jackson smashed three home runs on three straight pitches in the World Series clincher to rocket the Yankees to their first championship since 1962 and when Pelé capped his incomparable soccer career by elevating the world’s most popular sport to new heights in the New World, both superstars were relegated to runners-up behind racing’s wunderkind. Proving that Sports Illustrated’s choice was hardly a minority view, Cauthen also was selected as the Sporting News “Sportsman of the Year” and the Associated Press “Male Athlete of the Year,” the only racing personality on a roster swelled for nearly half a century with the most storied of sports legends. Suddenly, people who didn’t know a homestretch from a home run were anxiously watching to see what The Kid would do for an encore.
Whatever he did do in 1978 would be tied intimately with Affirmed and, by extension, Alydar. Although Affirmed had won four of their six showdowns as two-year-olds, the colts were ultimately separated by three photo finishes and a combined total of three feet. As the Winter Book favorites for the 1978 Kentucky Derby, Affirmed opened at 3-to-1 with Alydar right behind at 7-to-2. But those were just odds set by Las Vegas, and there were still miles and months of racing and trash-talking before the colts would meet in Louisville on the first Saturday in May.