Bob Baffert relives the lost Triple Crown opportunities and the all so elusive Belmont Stakes
Trainer Bob Baffert has gone through what Doug O’Neill is experiencing with I’ll Have Another going on to run in the Belmont Stakes to become the 12th horse to become the Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978, as he too had a chance to annex
the Triple Crown not once, twice but three times, but failed on all three occasions.
Bob Baffert did win the Belmont Stakes with, Point Given back in 2001, but he had gone into the “Test of Champion” twice before with the Triple Crown on the line.
The veteran trainer saddled Silver Charm back in 1997 to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, but fell short in the Belmont Stakes, as history repeated itself the very next year in 1998, when, Real Quiet failed to down the Belmont Stakes after winning
the first two legs of the Triple Crown.
And the most recent was, War Emblem, in 2002, who right after Silver Charm went on to win the first and the middle jewel of the crown, but was agonisingly close to winning the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes, and when asked how does it feel to be so close
and yet too far he replied.
“You’re disappointed. You’re exhausted. You wanted it to be over with, but it’s disappointing because you came so close and your horse ran so hard and then you come up short and forget about your Derby win and your Preakness win. You’re really just deflated.
I used to say, ‘I want to win the Derby and just go home and better enjoy it!’
Point Given was the only horse, who brought home the Belmont Stakes for trainer Bob Baffert, who has won the American Classics nine times in his career.
In Point Given, Baffert thought he had a Triple Crown winning horse, but the then-3-year-old colt failed to fire in the Kentucky Derby, but atoned for his defeat in the Preakness Stakes and won at Pimlico after a blistering run to the finish.
Entering the Belmont Stakes, Point Given, sure to do well, but nobody knew that he would not only win the Belmont Stakes but down the 1 ½ mile distance in 2 minutes and 26.80 seconds and run the fastest Belmont in the past 16 years.
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