Just One More Big Dance To Go

" Ron Franklin."

"Again?" Cordero said, referring to a similar outburst after the Florida Derby. "Good. What else is new? I can go anyplace I want with my horse. He fell behind me at the first turn and I didn't cause him any trouble. If he wants to come around me, that's his problem."

Cordero also charged Franklin with "coming over on me" at the half-mile pole. To this, Franklin replied, "Pay back is pay back."

Perhaps Pierce summed up the Preakness as well as anyone. "I thought that we were going into the race with a big shot to beat Spectacular Bid," he said. "Flying Paster ran a lot better in the Preakness than he did in the Derby. I still feel he's a lot better horse than he has shown. But maybe not. Maybe he's hooking better horses than he ran against in California this year, and can't handle them. When Spectacular Bid went by me, I tried to go with him but couldn't."

Bid's emergence as a possible third Triple Crown winner in a row naturally has people talking about the phenomenon. When Sir Barton became the first Triple Crown winner in 1919, he was one of a crop of 2,128 foals; Citation was one of 5,819; Secretariat was one of 24,954; Spectacular Bid comes from a group of approximately 30,000. Seemingly, it should be more difficult to win a Triple Crown now than before. But it isn't working out that way.

Horse racing, so steeped in tradition, myth and lore, is, as always, reluctant to admit to something unusual, but it would seem that the 1970s are on the way to becoming the Golden Decade of the Horse. Should Spectacular Bid win the Belmont, it would be his 13th consecutive stakes win, a stunning accomplishment. Colin and Man o' War won 14 in a row, Citation 13, Tom Fool 11, Native Dancer nine, but that is from half a century of racing. The 1970s have had Spectacular Bid, Affirmed with seven straight stakes, Seattle Slew six, Forego six and Secretariat four.

Walking slowly back to the stable area at Pimlico after the Preakness, Bud Delp, Bid's trainer, seemed almost subdued—for Delp. "Winning the Preakness," he said, "means so much. It's home folks. Yes, we've got one more big dance to go to before this thing is over. I truly felt last September that I had a Triple Crown winner on my hands. Bid can do so many things right. The Preakness was an outstanding race for him. The added distance of the Belmont? Let's have it! I've talked a lot since last fall—maybe too much—but a trainer usually gets only one chance in his life to go down this road, and I'm enjoying it. Spectacular Bid is versatile; he can handle any kind of track. Maybe what I've been trying to say about this horse all along is that he's unique. Yeah, that's the word, unique. Damned unique."

Delp looked in on Spectacular Bid, drank a couple of beers, posed for pictures and gave interviews. When a woman asked him what the winner's share of the Preakness was, he said, "Ma'am, I don't rightly know. I never thought about it. But I know that by winning the Preakness, Bid went over $1 million in earnings." The exact figure is $1,123,587.

Then the trainer very quietly called his help aside and tipped them. "I'm going out now and have a couple of drinks and a quiet dinner," he said. The man who had trained a horse to 12 stakes wins, won two-thirds of a Triple Crown and been virtually a one-man band in promoting his horse, reached into his pocket and smiled. "On the most satisfying day of my life," he said, "I got $1 in my pocket."