There will be no buzz for this year's Belmont Stakes

BALTIMORE

The most compelling feature of the Preakness is that as long as the Kentucky Derby winner shows up, there's a buzz about a possible Triple Crown. Super Saver's dynamic run at Churchill Downs for Calvin Borel raised those hopes again.

Ah, we never learn.

The colt who excelled in the slop May 1 began backpedaling when the real running began Saturday, when he finished eighth, 11½ lengths behind Lookin At Lucky. "He had a perfect trip," Borel said. "He just came up empty. He ran so hard in the Derby."

Borel again came up short on a prediction of victory. Super Saver, like Street Sense in the 2007 Preakness and Mine That Bird in last year's Belmont Stakes, couldn't get it done.

So for the fifth time in the past six years, no Triple Crown will be on the line at Belmont Park, bad news for the financially embattled New York Racing Association. Whenever the Derby winner repeats in Baltimore, the 1½-mile Belmont becomes a happening that transcends racing. The mainstream media rediscovers a sport it prefers to ignore, and tens of thousands get emotional about an animal they never heard of until the first Saturday in May.

But when different horses take the first two 3-year-old classics, the Belmont is just an extremely long race on Long Island in early June. Only horseplayers and the horses' connections really care.

Nobody has swept the series since Affirmed and 18-year-old jockey Steve Cauthen in 1978, and many say Affirmed will be the last of the 11 to earn the most elusive trophy in sports. Cauthen's brother Doug couldn't have grasped that concept then. After all, Seattle Slew did it the year before, and Secretariat four years before that.

Doug Cauthen is president and CEO of WinStar Farm, which bred and owns Super Saver. "When Steve won, I was 15, and it was a bad lesson," Cauthen said. "I thought, 'Oh, by the time I'm 18, I'll train a Derby winner.' I learned it was going to take a lot longer."

Another Triple Crown may take forever, yet the horses who come so close and fail often produce more compelling drama than the immortals did. Silver Charm (1997), Real Quiet ('98), Charismatic ('99), War Emblem (2002), Funny Cide ('03), Smarty Jones ('04) and Big Brown ('08) fell short, and the painful memories remain unique and vivid.

I still can see Touch Gold nailing Silver Charm in deep stretch, and Victory Gallop surging to nail Real Quiet in the tightest photo you'll ever see. The next year, there was the poignant scene of Chris Antley holding Charismatic when he broke down after the finish line. Confirmed front-runner War Emblem stumbled at the start, and that was it for him.

Funny Cide, Smarty Jones and Big Brown morphed into four-legged rock stars whose Belmont misfortunes caused anguish and tears. The Cult of the Gelding stood all day in chilly rain only to be denied by Empire Maker. Smarty Jones was Philadelphia's beloved working-class hero, and thousands came up the New Jersey Turnpike anticipating certain victory. When Birdstone caught an exhausted Smarty 70 yards from glory, they stalked out of Belmont stunned and enraged.

Big Brown's inexplicable meltdown was the weirdest of all. Rick Dutrow must have ticked off the racing gods by boasting that victory was "a foregone conclusion." Kent Desormeaux pulled up Big Brown at the top of the stretch, and as it turned out, he wasn't injured. Co-owner Michael Iavarone was distraught, sobbed back at the barn and wondered "Is this the end of racing?"

Last year, Borel had a chance to be the first rider to take the crown on different horses, Mine That Bird and Rachel Alexandra.

"I'd love to win the Triple Crown," Borel said Friday. "But if it happens, it happens; if it doesn't, it doesn't."

Once again, it didn't.