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The 1978 Triple Crown winner, who died this year, gave "the racing world a real show."
By BRANT JAMES, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 5, 2002
There is a sliver of Patrice Wolfson that would like to keep it for herself, for Affirmed.
Twenty-four years have passed since her chestnut Florida-bred outdueled Alydar to win a Belmont Stakes regarded as one of the greatest races ever, and in turn the most recent Triple Crown.
Each of the eight times since that a colt has entered the Belmont with a chance to become the 12th Triple Crown winner, Wolfson has savored Affirmed's place in history. As War Emblem seeks the Triple Crown on Saturday, she doesn't worry Affirmed will be forgotten.
"What is so wonderful," she said from her summer home in New York, "is ever since other horses have been going for the Triple Crown, they keep showing Affirmed and Alydar on TV. That's what racing is."
Steve Cauthen has similar sentiments. Five days after his 18th birthday, he became the youngest jockey to win a Triple Crown race when he guided Affirmed to the Kentucky Derby win in 1978. Now 42 and a front office executive at Turfway Park, he cannot begrudge Victor Espinoza's chance to join him in history.
"Sure, there is a little part of me that would like to still be the last," he said. "But there's a much bigger part of me -- and remember, none of this is under my control -- that would be very happy to have another Triple Crown winner.
"Racing needs a new star."
Nostalgia surrounds the ascension of new stars and their historic deeds, be it a home runchase or Triple Crown run. Affirmed's legacy is revisited with each Triple Crown bid, but it is more poignant since he fell ill with laminitis, a circulatory hoof disease, and was euthanized at age 26 in January. Seattle Slew's death in May leaves no living Triple Crown winner for the first time since Sir Barton won the first in 1919.
Horses of Affirmed's ilk do not come along anymore, partly because 3-year-old champions race less and often are turned quickly into studs, partly because he was just that good. The 1980 Hall of Fame inductee won five Eclipse Awards -- including horse of the year in 1978 and 1979 -- and 22 of 29 races over three years.
"Affirmed gave us and the racing world a real show," Wolfson said after Affirmed's death. "Not many horses could have done what he did: take on the very best, carry the weight, travel from coast to coast and usually win."
Affirmed's Triple Crown tale is a Florida story. Louis Wolfson, Patrice's husband and Affirmed's breeder, grew up near Jacksonville and became a wealthy businessman after his football career ended at the University of Georgia with a bad tackle and a shoulder injury. He enjoyed horse racing and got serious by creating Harbor View Farm outside Ocala.
Wolfson's hobby helped stoke the Florida racing industry -- with other pioneers such as Fred Hooper -- and one of his first 2-year-olds, Raise a Native, eventually sired Affirmed's father, Exclusive Native. Raise a Native also sired Alydar for Calumet Farm in Kentucky.
Affirmed and Alydar's 10 meetings and Triple Crown battles would represent a clash of the sport's old guard, Kentucky's Calumet and its eight Derby winners, and new challenger Florida with a racing heritage that began with Needles' Derby victory in 1956.
The Wolfsons sold Harbor View about 20 years ago and live in Bal Harbour in the winter but maintain a racing stable.
Affirmed, racing in the Wolfsons' pink and black, was named juvenile champion after going 7-2-0, beating his antagonist four times in six tries by close margins.
Both colts dominated in their early 3-year-old campaigns, setting up a Kentucky Derby that proved to be the least-compelling of their Triple Crown saga. Stalking off the early pace, Cauthen drew Affirmed off for a 11/2-length win over the late-charging Alydar, who had gone off as a 6-5 favorite.
In the Preakness, Affirmed was left alone on the lead after a half-mile, and Jorge Velasquez pulled Alydar alongside by the turn for a protracted stretch run. Affirmed won by a neck.
Three weeks later the horses found themselves alone again after a half-mile, Affirmed ahead by a length. Alydar slid next to his rival at the turn, and the colts matched strides toward the finish. Affirmed won by a head. "Affirmed only ran enough to win," Laz Barrera, Affirmed's trainer who died in 1991, once said. "He did what he needed to. Any time he saw another horse coming, he wouldn't get beat."
Cauthen and Wolfson think War Emblem can be great, but say a win Saturday alone will not make him such.
"That's a special club right now," she said of Triple Crown winners. "Hopefully if he wins he goes on to greatness. The last three (Triple Crown winners) were great before they won the Triple Crown, and certainly after." Adding a new member to the club, she said, won't dilute Affirmed's memory.
"We all have to move on, and records are made to be broken," she said. "Perhaps it's the time to happen. That's certainly not taking anything away from Affirmed."
That was, and still is, nearly impossible.