THE MORNING OF the Preakness, Laz Barrera was sitting in front of the Stakes Barn whiling away the hours chatting with the occasional reporter who would drop by to get an update on Affirmed. As the trainer sat on his metal folding chair near his colt’s stall in the barn where all the Preakness horses were stabled, Affirmed could often be caught dozing peacefully inside, head hanging low. “See,” Barrera said to a visitor, “he like an old man, nodding off.” Barrera turned and gestured down the long line of stalls. “See down at the other end of the barn?” he said, taking a moment to point out the differences between Affirmed and his archrival. “Alydar is being walked around. He’s nervous and been walking for forty-five minutes or more. Affirmed, he no walk; he does a doze. Me, I cannot doze. I like to sit here and talk to people who stop by. The days of big races are long ones. You come to the barn at six in the morning, and if you win, you don’t leave until nine o’clock at night. But you sit here long enough, you might learn something.”
The trainer knew that Affirmed’s ability to relax—and doze—could turn out to be the ultimate secret weapon. “This colt will relax and run wherever we want him,” he said. “Affirmed is a very smart racehorse. You can do anything with him. If a band came around the barn, he would dance.”
The week leading up to the Preakness had been a quiet one for Affirmed. It was clear that the Derby had taken a toll on the colt. He was noticeably leaner than he’d been before the race and Barrera’s response was to rest him, giving him only as much work as was needed to keep him fit. The colt had worked only once at Belmont Park, breezing a mile in 1:401/5 exactly a week prior to the Preakness, before shipping to Baltimore on Sunday. After resting for four days at Pimlico, he had been breezed half a mile through fog that was so dense the clockers couldn’t time him. But Barrera knew just how fast his colt had covered the distance. He explained to a reporter, “We couldn’t see anything, but I said, ‘Here come my horse.’ ‘You crazy,’ they told me. But I could hear him. The other horses were all ‘thumpety-ump, thumpety-ump.’ My horse, you could only hear ‘thrrip, thrrip, thrrip.’ He hits the ground and gets out of there so quick. Very light.” The next day, the only exercise the colt got was walking under the cover of the shed row overhang for about an hour.
Barrera had been fielding an assortment of questions from reporters all week. One day, he was asked if Lou Wolfson would be open to selling a part interest in Affirmed. The trainer snorted, then smiled and said, “No. Mr. Wolfson loves Affirmed so much that if he could have the horse in his bedroom, that’s where Affirmed would be right now.”
While Barrera was resting his horse, Veitch took the opposite tack. Alydar had come out of the Derby fit and in good flesh, and Veitch wanted to use the days at Pimlico to make sure his horse was comfortable with his surroundings and the track surface. He worked the colt on his usual schedule, putting in a blistering six-furlong work of 1:102/5 over a sloppy track on the Monday before the race and a sizzling three-furlong blowout in 35 seconds as the final tune-up on Friday.
After the Derby, there had been plenty of people offering postrace analysis and advice. In fact, Veitch told reporters that some three hundred fans had written to Calumet with suggestions on how to beat Affirmed in the Preakness. Not all the letters and telegrams were kind. “One fellow wrote that we ought to send Velasquez back to Panama and keep the canal,” Veitch said.
The trainer didn’t need the three hundred letters to recognize that Alydar would have to run a completely different race at Pimlico. The Preakness, a sixteenth of a mile shorter than the Derby, was thought to favor early speed and would thus give a frontrunner like Affirmed a tactical advantage. But Veitch insisted that the length of the race wouldn’t matter: Alydar would just unleash his big move earlier and that would be the end of Affirmed. “We beat Affirmed twice last year by flying past him with a big move,” he said. “This year my colt is bigger and stronger. I feel he can wear Affirmed down in the stretch drive. If Alydar can look Affirmed in the eye, I think we can win.”
Before the Derby, Veitch had told Velasquez not to be any more than three lengths behind Affirmed. Alydar’s problems with the track surface at Churchill Downs had made it impossible to follow those instructions. Veitch was hoping that this time, on a softer surface, Alydar wouldn’t fall so far behind and would move up on the turn to home. “We don’t want to be more than three or four lengths out of it at the three-eighths pole,” he told Velasquez. “I think Affirmed will go to the front and Cauthen will try to control the race while saving his horse as much as possible. You know your horse. Ride your race. Get position and come charging.”
As race day wore on, Barrera became increasingly agitated. It was already mid-afternoon, and he hadn’t seen his jockey all day. Though Cauthen had arrived at Pimlico in the morning, he’d been lying low in hopes of avoiding the media mob. And in the afternoon, he was too busy riding races to stop by the Stakes Barn to have a conversation with Barrera. “I’m mad at Stevie,” Barrera grumbled to reporters. “He hasn’t even called me yet. I wanted him out in the barn this morning so we could discuss how the race might be run. He should have been here last night. Instead, he come today. When you go out in the paddock to saddle the horse for the race, there isn’t enough time to talk.”
At 5 P.M., the horses were called to the paddock. Only one runner from the Derby was bold enough to take another shot at the two stars: Believe It. Joining him this time were Noon Time Spender, Indigo Star, Dax S., and Track Reward, a colt trained by Barrera’s son Albert.
Track Reward was originally slated to be shipped to Chicago for the Illinois Derby, but at the last minute his owner had decided to give the Preakness a shot. “I have to do what’s right for my horse and his owner,” the younger Barrera explained. “I could have shipped the horse to the Illinois Derby where there’s loads of purse money, but the owner would have had to pay two thousand dollars to fly him there, two thousand dollars to enter him, and two thousand dollars to bring him back to New York. That’s a big investment to run a horse in a big field on a small track. And if he loses, his record shows he got beat by no great ones. In the Preakness, at least we might lose to class.” The elder Barrera tried not to let his disappointment show. “What he’d really rather do is win in Illinois than lose to me here,” Laz said. “But, maybe that’s not the choice he had. I hope Albert gets a piece of it.”
As miffed as Barrera was by his twenty-three-year-old son’s presence in the Preakness, he was much angrier at the absence of the eighteen-year-old jockey he had come to view as a surrogate son. Because Cauthen hadn’t stopped by the barn, Barrera wouldn’t see him until Affirmed was already being tacked up for the Preakness. The jockey strode into the infield paddock just as Barrera was girthing up the colt. That meant the trainer would only have a few minutes to discuss race tactics with him. Once Barrera had given his final instructions and hoisted Cauthen into the saddle, horse and rider made their way to the track for the post parade to the strains of “Maryland, My Maryland.”
As Cauthen warmed up his mount with a short canter at the side of the pony, he was startled by a sudden roar of the crowd. He looked around and saw Alydar blasting off in a high-spirited gallop toward the starting gate. It was clear that Alydar was fit and raring to go.
FOR THE BIG rematch, a record 81,261 fans had packed Pimlico’s historic wooden grandstand, clubhouse, and infield—the largest crowd ever to witness a sporting event in Maryland—in anticipation of a stirring stretch showdown in the 103rd running of the Preakness Stakes. In the 107-year history of America’s second-oldest racetrack (behind Saratoga), the only time there had been this level of electric excitement was for the celebrated match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral exactly forty years earlier. As post time drew near on that sun-drenched afternoon of May 20, 1978, the fans flocked to the betting windows to make Affirmed the clear favorite at 1-to-2, with Alydar the solid second choice at 6-to-5.
When the starting gate banged open, Track Reward and Affirmed sprang out in front. Coming up to the clubhouse turn, the two were running together stride for stride, with Believe It third on the rail and Alydar five lengths back in sixth. Cauthen was happy that the pace was slow but irked that Track Reward was so close. The jockey knew that Affirmed would not be able to relax with another colt running right next to him. Glancing over at Track Reward, Cauthen thought, “Fine, either go by me and get the lead or I’ll go by and get the lead.” Halfway round the turn, with the two leaders still side by side, Cauthen decided enough was enough and asked Affirmed for a little more pace, and they scooted ahead of the other colt.
As soon as Affirmed took the lead, he relaxed once again, waiting for a challenge. Alydar was still at the back of the pack moving sluggishly, despite having broken sharper than usual. Velasquez, not wanting a replay of the Derby, immediately started to urge his mount to pick up the pace. This time Alydar responded, and as they rounded the turn, he started to move up from fifth place.
As the leaders straightened down the backstretch, Affirmed pulled away by nearly a length, while Alydar was flying past horses on the outside. As they came around the stretch turn, Affirmed was still in front, now with Noon Time Spender just behind him on the outside. Approaching the homestretch, Affirmed’s left ear rotated back as Eddie Maple urged Believe It to challenge along the rail. Suddenly Affirmed’s right ear swiveled back and the crowd grew louder. Cauthen snuck a quick look back over his right shoulder and saw that Alydar was charging up.
As they hit the stretch with three-sixteenths of a mile to go, Alydar drew closer. Cauthen was ready for the challenge. He knew he still had plenty of horse underneath him. Velasquez switched his whip to the left side and slapped Alydar twice on the hip, in an attempt to get the big colt to pop onto the right lead. He was hoping that the left-handed whip might jolt Alydar into making the switch. But the colt refused.
Cauthen felt a huge acceleration as Affirmed met the challenge and the two colts drew away from the rest of the field at the sixteenth pole. The crowd roared its appreciation for the duel that everyone had been denied in the Derby. As the two colts thundered down the stretch toward the wire, Cauthen felt they were flying. Velasquez switched his whip to the right hand and slapped his colt repeatedly, urging him on. As they powered forward and Alydar got his nostrils even with Affirmed’s throatlatch, Velasquez was sure they’d caught their rival this time. But Cauthen tapped Affirmed up, slapping him repeatedly on the right hip. Affirmed surged once again, and Alydar’s head dropped back to Affirmed’s withers. Alydar made a final lunge, but Affirmed wouldn’t be passed. As they flew across the finish line, Affirmed was still a neck ahead.
Affirmed had captured the Preakness the same way he always won the close ones from Alydar: by simply refusing to let his rival pass.
The pulsating stretch duel made an afterthought of everyone else in the field, leaving third-place finisher Believe It seven and a half lengths back. And it made a footnote of the winning time: 1:542/5, the same clocking as Triple Crown winners Secretariat and Seattle Slew recorded in their blazing Preakness wins.
As Affirmed stood gazing at the crowds around him in the winner’s circle and posing for photos, a blanket of black-eyed Susans was draped over his withers. Pimlico’s general manager marveled at what he had just seen. “I don’t know when you’ll ever again see two three-year-olds like this in the same year,” Chick Lang told reporters. “Honest, both of them, one hundred percent honest, running their hearts out at one another. When somebody asks what a Thoroughbred is, you can describe it in two words: Affirmed and Alydar.”
Minutes later, as the winning team was making its way from the winner’s circle up to the press box, Cauthen was ushered into the elevator and Barrera was left behind to wait for the car to come back—which in twenty minutes never happened. Feelings obviously hurt, the trainer groused to a reporter nearby, “Steve Cauthen is the only hero in this damned game. The day before the race, Maple was here, Velasquez was here, all the jockeys were here—except Cauthen. I had about two seconds to talk to him before the race. I work all week here and he’s the prima donna.”
While Barrera was stuck downstairs waiting for the elevator that would never return, Cauthen was answering reporters’ questions in the press box. One wanted to know if the jockey and the trainer had discussed strategy before the Preakness. “I haven’t really talked to him since the Kentucky Derby,” Cauthen replied. “I just read what he says in the papers. We both know the horse, and there’s nothing for us to say.”
The jockey then went on to describe his trip in the race. “We broke well,” he started. “I thought Believe It would set the pace but he didn’t, so we took the lead and just waited for Alydar. Jorge came to us in the stretch and set his horse down for a drive. I set my horse down and hit him about six times, and my horse beat his horse. That’s all there was to it. The last few jumps they might have gained a few inches, but I wasn’t really worried.”
Over at the jockeys’ room, the vanquished poured out their tales of woe.
“Coming to the three-sixteenths pole, I thought I was going by him,” Velasquez said. “But when I got to Affirmed, he just took off again.” Velasquez shrugged in resignation. “I don’t know,” he said, “I got about a head away from him—I never got by him—and Affirmed picked it up. He’s a tough sonuvabitch. Coming to the sixteenth pole, my horse started digging in some more. He tried to get by him, and I thought he was getting to him and he could win. But the other horse took off again. He tried, but he couldn’t get by him. Beat by a neck.”
Eddie Maple, Believe It’s jockey, was even more discouraged. “Horses like Alydar and my horse aren’t losing because we’re running out of gas,” Maple said. “It’s just that when anybody challenges Affirmed the way we did in the Derby and the way Alydar did today, he comes up with more horsepower. He didn’t run away from the opposition the way Secretariat did, but he’s at the head of a class of very fine horses.”
For John Veitch, a day that had started out bright and full of hope was now gloomy. Sitting on the wooden fence outside the Stakes Barn, Veitch talked to reporters about Alydar, the race, and the future. “Do I think that Affirmed has broken Alydar’s heart because he has beaten him six out of the eight times the two have met?” he said in answer to a question. “No. Not with a horse like Alydar. He’s just too good. This Preakness was an exceptional race, and Alydar got beaten only by a neck. In racing, necks have a way of changing around from one week to the next, and three weeks from now in the Belmont, Alydar could have his neck in front. There isn’t a thing in the world for Alydar to be ashamed of.”
Woody Stephens wasn’t quite as copacetic. He spent a few minutes summing up his thoughts on competing against Affirmed and Alydar. “I tried them in the Derby and the Preakness, and that’s enough for me,” he said. “I’m going to wherever they ain’t. In the Derby, Believe It was beaten by less than three lengths. In the Preakness, it was nearly eight. So long, Affirmed. Bye-bye, Alydar.”