TDN HEADLINE NEWS • 5/1/03
WRITERS UP
AFFIRMED: AN APPRECIATION
By Bill Finley
(used with permission of ThoroughbredDailyNews.com

I am young to be curmudgeonly and haven't been around so long that I should be allowed to harken back to the good old days, but when the subject comes around to Affirmed and the evolution of the breed in the 25 years since he won the Triple Crown, I feel I must do just that.

There will never be another horse like him. There: I said it.

I was 17 and a marginal racing fan when Affirmed won the Kentucky Derby, the first I ever attended. I can't remember exactly why I was in his camp and not Alydar's, but I was an Affirmed guy, no doubt about it. There was no middle ground. Everyone liked one of the two, but not the other. It was no different then than rooting for your favorite baseball team. I wanted Affirmed to win the Kentucky Derby not because I had bet $5 on him (a princely sum for a kid making $22.50 a week on his paper route), but because I wanted my team, my horse, to prove that he was a winner, a champion. That he not only won the Triple Crown but did so after gutting it out against Alydar in the Belmont in perhaps the most exciting race in the sport's history was more than anybody could have asked for. I was sold, a fan for life.

You know what? This horse was cool. And horses just aren't that cool anymore. Nor will they ever compile that tangible accomplishments that Affirmed did. No one has won the Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978. I have long believed that Triple Crown winners are going to come in dribbles over the next many years; that is, if they come at all. It's not a coincidence that no one has conquered this immense challenge in such a long time. Modern horses just aren't made to handle the difficulties posed by three races in five weeks and distances that are beyond the scope of all but the rarest horses.

Then again, Bobby Frankel, he of the magic touch, has a wonderful horse named Empire Maker who seems so far ahead of his competition that it's within the realm of imagination that come the first week in June he will be crowned the 12th Triple Crown winner. That would put him among the rarest of company, but pound for pound, accomplishment for accomplishment, he will never stack up favorably to Affirmed. Affirmed was a product of an era when greatness was earned, awarded only to a horse who proved himself over time, carried weight, met and beat the best and stayed around long enough for the sport to fall in love.

The Kentucky Derby will be the sixth lifetime start for Empire Maker. The 1978 Kentucky Derby was Affirmed's 14th career race.

Empire Maker won just once as a two-year-old and was third in his only stakes attempt. He was, for obvious reasons, not in the running for a championship. Affirmed, a champion at two, won seven races, six of them stakes, three of them Grade I stakes.

Though this a common complaint at this time of year, it does not look like–with the exception of Empire Maker–this is a particularly good crop. Let him win, they'll still be saying, `But who did he beat?' That never happened with Affirmed. He had Alydar to bolster his reputation. Alydar was a great horse and likely would have won the Triple Crown had he not had the misfortune of being born the same year Affirmed was. Affirmed may not have been in the league of, say, a Kelso when it came to carrying weight, but he did win under 130 pounds in the 1979 Californian. Empire Maker will never carry 130 pounds in any race any time because horses just don't carry weight anymore. It's far too early to speculate how long Empire Maker will last or whether or not he will race at four. But it's hard to believe that he will ever be asked to match Affirmed for his durability and his ability to race at the highest level for so long. Affirmed made 29 starts over three years and won 22 races. (It would have been 23 if not for his disqualification in the Travers). He won 14 Grade I races, was a champion three straight years and a back-to-back Horse of the Year.

None of this is meant as a knock on Empire Maker. He could be as good a horse as anyone has seen in a long time, but he is a horse of the 21st century, when everything is so different than it was back when Affirmed made history. He probably won't be around that long or race that many times and you can bet that he'll never develop a serious rivalry with another horse.

Spectacular Bid may have been the last horse to fulfill the role of greatness in an era where greatness was hard to come by. But he didn't win the Triple Crown and Affirmed did, 25 years ago. It might as well have been 250 years ago, or so it sometimes seems.

He died January 12, 2001 at Jonabell Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, where he had stood since 1992.

What makes a horse truly special? Whatever is on your list, Affirmed qualifies in every category. It has been 25 years since his Derby, his Preakness, his Belmont, his most special accomplishments. I was an Affirmed guy then. I still am now.