Smarty Jones fails to gallop into history.

[Dirkenstien]

A truly heart breaking race to watch...Smarty Jones fails to run into history, as he was barely beaten in the clenching moments of the final stretch.

Belmont Bummer

[mary]

General Admission to Lone Star Park with a Dr. Pepper can: $ 2.00
$ 4 Across the Board bet on 36-1 longshot Birdstone: $ 12.00
Jumping up and down wildly while those around you have powered down: priceless [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

[EricaLubarsky]

The saddest day in sports history.



I [img]i/expressions/heart.gif[/img] you, Smarty Jones.

[SaltwaterChaffy]

Well, at least Philadelphians lose out again. [img]i/expressions/devil.gif[/img]

[Murphy3]

Ya know, the only thing more boring than a horse running in circles is race cars driving in circles.

[MavKikiNYC]

Posted on Sun, Jun. 06, 2004

Saturday silence demonstrates the impact of Smarty's story

By Randy Galloway

Star-Telegram Staff Writer


ELMONT, N.Y. - The sudden sound of silence was deafening. It was an eerie hush, followed by the low rumble of a quiet mutter.

Bitter disappointment obviously prevailed.

So bitter that it even shut up 120,139 stunned New Yorkers.

Unheard of, huh?

Seconds earlier, those same 120,139 voices had been at full volume, unleashing a mighty roar of support.

Those voices were urging, prodding, pleading ...

Smarty Jones, the people's horse, had the lead in the stretch, and was attempting to front-run his way into history.

The people wanted it. Bad.

Belmont Park's record crowd was in bedlam mode. This was a New York crowd at its best.

If vocal volume mattered, Smarty Jones would have held on. That last sixteenth of the mile-and-a-half endurance test would have been his ride to the wire, his ride to victory in the Belmont Stakes, carried along by that incredible wall of noise.

And, of course, Smarty Jones would have been racing's first Triple Crown winner in 26 years.

But a 36-1 long shot, Birdstone, closed with a steady rush, ran down Smarty, and won by a length.

No excuses. No postrace whining from Smarty's connections. No nothing except gracious postrace statements.

But what will be remembered is that eerie hush that settled over Belmont late on a Saturday afternoon. And across America, wherever horses run, it was the same eerie silence as Birdstone pulled away in that last sixteenth-mile.

Smarty Jones was a story for the ages. Smarty Jones, during his incredible run through the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, had done more for the sport than any horse in ages.

All of racing lost when Smarty lost.

But that's the game.

A game of incredible highs and bottom-of-the-ditch lows, with usually nothing in between.

Second place on this day was the ditch.

And where else, in what other sport, do you ever hear the winners apologizing?

Never in horse racing, for sure. Except on this day, it did happen.

The winners won, and then said they were sorry.

Everyone knew what Smarty had meant to the game.

Immediately after the two horses crossed the finish line, jockey Edgar Prado pulled Birdstone alongside Smarty Jones and jockey Stewart Elliott.

"I'm sorry, my friend," Prado told Elliott. "I feel very, very sad at the moment."

Elliott said his reply to Prado was: "What are you gonna do? It's horse racing."

Elliott added: "Everyone wanted to see this horse win. I think [Prado] felt a little sad about it."

Prado also told a national TV audience: "I had to do my job. I'm very sorry it happened."

What did happen to Smarty on this day?

"The mile and a half," said Elliott. "It got him."

So did the grind of three Triple Crown races in five weeks, with the finale being this mile-and-a-half.

"He needs a rest," said Smarty's trainer, John Servis. "That's what today was probably all about."

But, as always, Smarty was game. Smarty ran his heart out. He easily put away his most serious challengers -- Rock Hard Ten, Eddington and Purge.

Prado and Birdstone, however, were on the prowl as Smarty came off the turn and headed down the stretch.

It was obvious immediately that Birdstone represented huge trouble.

And when Birdstone pulled away and hit the wire first, track announcer Tom Durkin gave probably the most deflated national TV victory call in the history of racing.

Frankly, Durkin got it right. It was not a jubilant moment, even for native New Yorker Nick Zito, Birdstone's trainer. He won the Belmont for the first time in 12 tries, after finishing second five previous times. But the win for Zito came with mixed emotions.

"Smarty Jones has been a great thing for racing. I told John I was really sorry," Zito said, explaining his postrace conversation with Servis, who had hunted down Zito to congratulate and hug him.

More apologies came from John Hendrickson, the husband of Birdstone's owner, Marylou Whitney.

"We really are sorry," he said.

Whitney, from a blue-blooded thoroughbred background, admitted, "We kept saying to Prado, 'Finish second.' "

But her Birdstone wasn't listening, and neither was Prado.

There was a race to be won.

Birdstone won it.

Horse racing will not have its new and special hero as a Triple Crown winner.

But Servis promised that Smarty would be back for more after the horse got his rest.

Smarty Jones is still the people's horse. The people will want more.

The stretch-run roar from 120,000-plus voices was something awesome to hear Saturday.

But the New York silence that followed was even more deafening.

And then the winners apologized for winning.

Even in defeat, that alone says everything about the Smarty Jones story.


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