At 31 years of age Silver Charm is still going strong at Old Friends in Kentucky. He has been there for many years. He is also the oldest living Kentucky Derby winner, having won in 1997.
The race:
The horse who defeated him in the 1997 Belmont Stakes, denying him the Triple Crown, Touch Gold, is still alive and is also at Old Friends.
Snip:
Though Silver Charm led the Belmont with an eighth of a mile to go and looked poised to become the first Triple Crown winner in 19 years, Touch Gold accelerated past him in the last 75 yards to win by half a length.
Now, Touch Gold lives one paddock over, where a romantic fan can at least imagine the two old rivals carrying on a decades-long argument about who was actually better.
Remarkably, they both still look robust and healthy, which is in no small part thanks to the detailed health care and nutritional support the horses receive at Old Friends. Even though Silver Charm is long past his athletic glory and his coat is much whiter than people remember from his racing days, he still makes a good impression and seems like a horse with plenty of life left in him.
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The morning line favorite for this year's Kentucky Derby, my 65th is Journalism.
American Pharoah, who won this race on the way to the 2015 Triple Crown, has a son in the race named Publisher.
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Last year, Steve Haskin wrote a piece for Secretariat.com analyzing and explaining why Secretariat's Belmont record will never be broken.
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