Texas obsesses about football in the same way that New York obsesses about baseball. Sure, I get excited when the Rangers are in the post-season and yeah, it would be cool to watch the Cowboys in the Super Bowl. But my house isn’t a big sports-loving house. I’ve owned a horse ever since I was a little girl and I just love to watch them run, so naturally I was glued to the television to watch American Pharoah attempt a go at the Triple Crown.
After a 37 year dry spell, every horse racing fan in America had their doubts as they watched all of the pre-race events and listened to the spectators, how could they not? Every year that there has been a Triple Crown prospect, the major newspapers had two versions of the front page printed, waiting to see which one would be out on the streets the next morning. Every year, they print the dreary paper, the one with the headline that read “Smarty Groans” or “Big Brown, Let Down”. But not this year. Tomorrow the papers will fly off the shelves, a keepsake, a memento from history.
The horse with the accidentally misspelled name and the 43 year old jockey who had already lost two Belmont Stakes, rode away with the first Triple Crown victory in nearly four decades.
Every year a baseball team, a football team, a basketball team win their respective championships. The Olympics names a winner in every sport every four years. But horse racing isn’t like that. I could live the rest of my life and never have the chance to see another horse do what American Pharoah did. All I can hope for is that I’ll be able to snag a newspaper with the monumental headline. And, that if I don’t get to see another Triple Crown, I won’t forget how it felt the rest of the day when my voice hurt from screaming and everyone was elated watching the bay horse from New Jersey wear the red roses before flying home on his private jet, “Air Horse One”.
Way to go Pharoah, way to go.
