Bodemeister got ripped off of fame and success at the hands of the trainer, Bob Baffert
Bodemeister missed the 2012 Belmont Stakes not because of his own incapability but due to the ‘human’ fear of his trainer, Bob Baffert, for whom missing the third leg of the Triple Crown against I’ll Have Another was nothing less than a source of deep humiliation.
Empire Maker’s three-year-old colt had finished second behind I’ll Have Another in the first two legs of the Triple Crown.
The twist of fate yanked the Triple Crown contender right out of the contest as he endured a rather serious tendon injury, extending the Triple Crown curse on to a thirty-fifth year.
There are two questions that spurt up in the minds of the crowds and audience; what would the Belmont Stakes been like with I’ll Have Another and Bodemeister both racing and secondly; would Union Rags had won the Belmont Stakes if Bodemeister still held
an entry after I’ll Have Another got withdrawn at the last moment?
Winning the Triple Crown was an out of question argument for Bodemeister as he had only scored as the runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, but he could for sure have pulled off the most astonishing, and horrific upset by crossing the
wire before I’ll Have Another, even if only by a very slight margin.
That too would have left the nation deprived of a Triple Crown winner but at least that would have saved the horse racing industry of the endless ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. I’ll Have Another losing the race at the hands of a potential contender would have stayed
branded in the minds of the crowds, but Union Rags landing the race with no real competition to face is a news that will soon be forgotten.
This reflected in the drastic drop down in the level of attendance at the Belmont Park from 100,000 to 80,000.
Had Bob Baffert done something alike to a human being, they could have complained or retaliated, being so ruthlessly mean with an animal who does not even understand what he has been kept away from and then ultimately deprived of, is murderous.
The trainer might just have killed the 2013 Triple Crown sensation in order to guard an ‘ego’ that does not belong to a sport where it is the four legged who decides within a few minutes the fate and not the ‘all wise’ who have and will enjoy to manipulate
and fabricate the truth.
Had it been trainer, Doug F. O’Neill annulling the entry of I’ll Have Another from the Belmont Stakes before Bob Baffert got a chance to save ‘expected’ humiliation at the hands of the better players in the game, it was one in a million chance that Bodemeister
would not have been racing any longer too.
It is not the first time in the history of horse racing that the winner of the two legs could not even get to the gates of the final challenge. Bold Venture in 1936, and Burgoo King in 1932, were scratched from the contest at the last moment.
In the wake of saving himself the embarrassment, the trainer might just have lost the only chance of being the happiest and the most accomplished by being the trainer of the horse, who if given the chance, could have set new records for the Belmont Stakes
and the Triple Crown.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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