BACKSIDE: THE HIDDEN TRIPLE CROWN

[Music] If you have a good horse, you think that maybe it'll happen to you, maybe as a trainer or an owner or a jockey that you might be the one that will be blessed with what is a rare feat in sports, and that's to have a triple crown winner [Music] in More than a 100 years, it has happened just 11 times. Not once in the last decade. That's winning the triple crown. Running a thoroughbred uncertain, unpredictable to successive victories in the world's greatest horse race, the legendary Kentucky Derby at historic Churchill Down, the Pnness in Maryland, an impossible 14 days later, and then a mere 5 weeks after the Derby, the final and most formidable challenge, New York's Belmont Stakes. Horse races of dreams and despair, of fortune and failure, of hope and heartbreak. The Triple Crown in all of sport. The most difficult crown to win, the brightest to wear. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] It's the first Saturday in May, Derby Day. For more than a century, the most celebrated single day in all of horse racing. This is the first leg of the Triple Crown. And Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, awaits the arrival of more than a 100,000 fans who have come to watch no more than 20 horses run a mile and a quarter for half a million dollars. This is the run for the roses. A handwoven garland of red that will crown the derby winner in the fragrance of victory. But for many horse racing fans, the fragrance of preference is the smell of green dollars. That is better wager millions on this race. $2 will get you a piece of any horse in the derby. A horse that might go on to win the triple crown. >> Large fortunes riding on the smallest of shoulders. the jockeyies, the pilots of the dream. >> On the Kentucky Derby Day, uh, all the riders get together here from all over the nation and come in to ride the best horses. The atmosphere is really good because everybody is a professional and they all come together. They know what this is, the Triple Crown and the Derby. >> The waiting is almost over. >> Put a half bet on every half pound. when you come down there and when when you go in the track and you hear the uh my old Kentucky home, it's just something great. You everybody get the chills and and it's just great, you know, and and then uh you go into the race and you just hope for the best. >> Not only is there pressure but excitement uh uh you worry about what you have done, what you didn't do, what you wanted to do. You want to run someplace and hide, but there is no place to hide. And uh when once you get the saddle on the horse and he walks out of the paddic onto the racetrack, uh you've got about 12 or 13 minutes of pure agony before they put him in the starting gate. Of >> course, once I get on his back or on her back, well, then there's that that uh physical contact. And a horse, especially a third, they're extremely sensitive individuals and they uh uh they pick up on the moods of the in the atmosphere, you know, the moods of the people in the atmosphere. And I'm sure that uh if horses could speak, they could tell you right now that there's something very special coming up. >> Well, it's a big day, but uh when that bell ring, you forget everything about concentrated where you're supposed to be, right? That is you got to just forget about the crowd, forget about the atmosphere. That's the whole key of the race. Stay out of trouble and make the right moves to be able to use your horse at the right time at the right place. >> Well, it's a great feeling, especially, you know, like when you think you're going to win the race. Uh sometime when you riding on a favorite in a horse that's supposed to win the race and and you maybe lay in second or third or maybe fourth and you just >> you have you feel like you have a ton of horse you you feel like anytime you let go you want to go to the lead and pass everybody and win the race. That's that's the greatest feeling. You know you know you're going to win and you just feel confidence about it. A derby winner is crowned. Greatness is applauded. Now just one of a crop of more than 50,000 thoroughbreds wears the roses and carries the dream. At least until they run the PNness in Baltimore. In 2 weeks, a period often too short to fully recover. The Derby winner must fight fatigue and do it again on a different track at a different distance with new challengers added to the cast. >> Obviously, the Derby is the Derby which starts it all off. Then you come to the crossroads. Can there be a Triple Crown winner? They have to get by this hurdle to make that distinction. We're the last of the great inner city tracks. We're the step back in tradition in time, if you will. You know, when people come here, uh, our stands are 1870. Uh, >> and the tradition of the Pnness is just as old. On the backside here, the Derby winner is offered stall 45, the Pnness throne of the Derby. >> The PNIS is an essential part of the Triple Crown because it's different than the other two, particularly because it comes two weeks after the Derby. Many horses can't recover as well in two weeks. The sprinter or the horse that has the greater speed might have a big advantage. They say the turns are tighter here at Bimlo. So the speed horse might have an edge to win the pness as opposed to the longer Kentucky Derby and the mile and a half Belmont. >> That's the very thing that makes it special. You have to adjust and you you can't play on the same field or the same court against the same competition. [Music] They'll be affected by the texture of the racetrack. These are young horses. These are horses that they're out of kindergarten, but they're still in elementary school. And at this Brnness, an elementary lesson is repeated. The winning colors of the Derby will not win the second jewel of the Triple Crown. A new star has risen to triumph. But even before the paint dries on the infield weather vein, where the silks of the prius champion are commemorated each year, thoughts turn to the final leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, the test of champions. A race older than Major League Baseball, college football, and the game of basketball. Well, the main thing about the Belmont that makes it such a unique races is the distance, the mile and a half. And it's a as as the people in the profession say, it's a classic distance. And it takes a classic horse to do it. >> On an oval oasis of tranquility at the edge of boisterous New York City, they'll run the Belmont Stakes. This time, no horse can claim the coveted Triple Crown. But the horse who places best in the three- race series will win a million dollar bonus from Chrysler. [Music] Very few American horses can go a mile and a half successfully. They can all go a mile and a half and successfully is the operative word in that case. >> The one that wins the Belmo, that's I think that's a really um a test because it's a mile and one half and it really show what kind of a horse is going to be. >> The record time in the Belmont belongs to Triple Crown Champion Secretari 2 minutes 24 seconds. On this day, the legacy of the great chestnut galloped out of a dream and into the winner circle on the legs of his son, Risen Star, whose triumph was enriched with the Chrysler million-dollar bonus. >> Maybe the future holds another triple crown winner. This year, a new crop of thoroughbreds competes for that richest prize. And it all started with the Kentucky Derby. I'm Jim McKay, and I'll see you in the winner circle. You, too, maybe. Huh?