The following column, “I’m Always Ready to Lose,” by Red Smith, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, appeared in The New York Times on June 10, 1979, and is from “To the Swift: Classic Triple Crown Horses and Their Race for Glory” (St. Martin’s Press), edited by Joe Drape.

Hung on the rail around the Belmont Park walking ring was a hand-lettered salute to Spectacular Bid’s jockey. “Ron Franklin,” the sign read, “is spectacular.” Horse players were jammed eight or 10 rows deep around the paddock as the field for the Belmont Stakes paraded, but there must have been at least one fight fan among them. “Franklin will whip your tail,” he cried as Angel Cordero, the jockey who moonlights as Franklin’s sparring partner, was hoisted aboard General Assembly.

Nobody said anything just then to Ruben Hernandez on Coastal, but earlier in the week when the prospect arose that this colt might be made a supplementary entry, Buddy Delp, Spectacular Bid’s trainer, said: “I beat this horse by 17 lengths in Jersey. Why is he coming in here?”

Delp got the answer yesterday, and he accepted it like a champion. Along with 59,073 paying guests, he saw Coastal ramble home on top in the 111th and richest running of the gaudy old cavalry charge, he saw his tired gray colt beaten back to third by Golden Act, breaking a winning streak of 12 straight stakes, and he saw his dream of a Triple Crown shattered. Then he went back to Barn 14, opened a can of Heineken’s and said:

“He may not be a mile-and-a-half horse. The best horse won. I got beat, that’s all. Tomorrow’s another day.’

He took a long swallow of beer. “I couldn’t see any excuse for my horse at all. He was strong until he ran out of gas. I’m not shocked, I’m disappointed. I understand horse racing better than a lot of people do. I’m always ready to lose. I’ve lost a lot more than anybody.”

Over on the front side of the track, the experts were already dissecting Ron Franklin’s ride with the sure touch of sophomores in the biology lab dissecting a frog. “A turf expert,” one definition goes, “is a baseball writer with borrowed binoculars.”

“Around the racetrack,” another says, “an expert is somebody who’s been right once.”

Now they were saying that Franklin pulled his mount’s cork by sending him to the front early and going the first mile in 1:36. On the back side, Buddy Delp sipped his beer.

“The kid rode a fine race,” he said again and again.

In a little while Franklin joined him. Trainer and jockey climbed into a car to ride back home to Laurel, Md. A woman handed Franklin a scrap of paper for an autograph. “Make it quick, Ronnie,” Delp said. In the front seat, he reached across and scribbled his own signature below the jockey’s. “There, lady,” he said. “You’ve got the losers.”

At just about that time, William Haggin Perry, who owns Coastal, and David Whiteley, who trains him, visited the press box. They had waited till the last moment to make their colt a starter, putting up $5,000 to enter him last Thursday but deciding only about 2 P. M. yesterday to pay the remaining $15,000 of the supplementary fee. That money was due because Coastal had not been nominated by Feb. 15, as the others were.

Coastal’s training for the Belmont had been retarded. He had won two of five starts last year but finished fifth in the World Playground at Atlantic city in September, 17 lengths behind the victorious Spectacular Bid. He suffered an eye injury in the fall when he was hit by a clod, and didn’t start as a 3-year-old until April 28. Running in blinkers, he won three times in a row, and the third was a smasher in the Peter Pan, which he polished off by 13 lengths.

It was that race that got Coastal’s people thinking about the Belmont. If they didn’t remember, there were others who reminded them how Counterpoint, Gallant Man, High Gun and Cavan had all used the Peter Pan as a prep for Belmont, had knocked off that race and gone on to take the big one. So they invested the $20,000 – the other starters paid only $3,100 to get the post – and they got back $161,400,

Spectators were astonished when Spectacular Bid took out after Gallant Best soon after the start and went to the front early in the backstretch, though in most of his successful races he had run fairly close to the pace. When David Whiteley was asked about this, a trace of a smile touched his lips. He recalled that at the press breakfast last Thursday, Harry Meyerhoff, the colt’s owner, had teased Delp by asking whether he thought Spectacular Bid could spring a mile and a half.

“Maybe they were trying to prove something,” Whiteley said, “because the boy was riding him on the back side.” He looked around at the assembled press. “You all been comparing him to Secretariat,” he said. “Maybe they were worried about 31 lengths.” That was Secretariat’s stunning margin in the Belmont of 1973.

Beaten in the third and last leg of the Triple Crown series, Spectacular Bid joins a distinguished company that tired and fell back in the past. Starting 35 years ago, eight horses before him won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness but failed in the Belmont. They were Pensive in 1944, Tim Tam in 1958, Carry Back in 1961, Northern Dancer in 1964, Kauai King in 1966, Forward Pass in 1986 (though he finished second in the Derby and was moved up later when Dancer’s Image was disqualified), Majestic Prince in 1969 and Canonero II in 1971.

“So your horse won’t be remembered with Secretariat,” a man said to Buddy Delp.

“No,” the trainer said. “He sure won’t be, but I’ll remember him pretty good.”

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The Rail, with Joe Drape, The New York Times's horse racing reporter, and others from the racing community, gives readers a look at the race for the Triple Crown. From the paddock to the starting gate to the winner's circle, The Rail provides an insider's view of the action.

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