Belmont Stakes 1970-1979

More vintage races from the final jewel of the Triple Crown.



High Echelon 1970:






Pass Catcher 1971:






Riva Ridge 1972:



Secretariat 1973, the legendary performance:





Little Current 1974:






Avatar 1975:




Bold Forbes 1976:




Seattle Slew 1977:



Affirmed 1978, in the greatest race of all time:



Coastal 1979 in a race he shouldn't have won but for a lousy ride by Spectacular Bid's jockey Ron Franklin:

Pre-1980 Preakness Stakes

It seems some collectors are rather slow in putting up old Preakness races, and a few of them refuse to put in embed codes.

Spectacular Bid 1979:



Affirmed 1978:



Seattle Slew 1977 from this link.


Master Derby 1975


Secretariat 1973. Secretariat's move on the first turn is the most sensational in the history of the race. I HATE the music with this race. Just show the race with no trimmings:



Canonero II 1971. This is in Spanish:



Majestic Prince 1969:



Northern Dancer 1964


Greek Money 1962 by a tiny margin over Ridan.

Bold Ruler 1957. Footage is silent:



Bold Ruler, the greatest sire in thoroughbred racing history, sired 1973 winner Secretariat, who in turn sired 1988 winner Risen Star.

Fabius, son of Citation, 1956. Newsreel ighlights:

Kentucky Derby 1970-1979

The decade of champions. Oh, how I miss Chic Anderson!

1970: Dust Commander:





1971: Canonero II:



1972: Riva Ridge:



1973: Secretariat, who set the track record which still stands today and in a freakish performance in which he ran each quarter faster than the previous one:



1974: Cannonade:



1975: Foolish Pleasure:



1976: Bold Forbes:



1977: Seattle Slew:



1978: Affirmed:



1979: Spectacular Bid:

The Greatest Race of All Time.

The 1978 Belmont Stakes, Affirmed and Alydar, still the best horse race I ever saw:

Triple Crown.

Not even Secretariat's trainer Lucien Laurin was going around predicting his horse would win the 1973 Triple Crown.

Secretariat didn't have any problem with his feet, either.

Speaking of the Triple Crown, in another installment in a series of videos, former jockeys Jorge Velasquez (Alydar) and Steve Cauthen (Affirmed) talk about the 1978 Belmont Stakes, perhaps the greatest race of all time.

It's Been 30

long years since horse racing has had a Triple Crown winner, and it's long overdue.

What the sport needs is another Affirmed-Alydar rivalry, or hell, another Secretariat, to help revive its popularity.

Let's take a look at the 1978 Kentucky Derby, which Affirmed won by the largest margin of any of the three races. Dave Johnson, for ABC, calls the race:

To Celebrate Affirmed's

win of the 1978 Triple Crown, jockeys Jorge Velasquez and Steve Cauthen recall the great rivalry between the winner and Alydar.

This Year

marks the 30th anniversary of Affirmed's sweep of the Triple Crown in 1978. No horse since has won the series, though Spectacular Bid in 1979 should have won it.

To mark the occasion, Affirmed's owner, Patrice Wolfson, has written a piece for Blood Horse magazine.

The 1978 Triple Crown series was still the best contested racing series of all time.

I'll Go Ahead

and repost the 1978 Belmont Stakes as a tribute of sorts to the late Louis Wolfson, who owned and bred the champion:




It's still the best race I ever saw, bar none.

The Miami Herald

has an article up about the late Louis Wolfson, who died Sunday on his 35th wedding anniversary. He was 95.

Wolfson, before receiving acclaim for having bred and raced the great Affirmed, was noted for other things:

But in the mid-1960s, he was facing securities-related criminal indictments: one for conspiracy to defraud Merritt stockholders in a stock-purchase plan, the other for allegedly selling $2.5 million in unregistered stocks.

The second charge stuck. After he was convicted of selling unregistered stock -- a charge he denied -- Wolfson served almost a year at Eglin Air Force Base's minimum-security federal prison in Florida's Panhandle. He was the first person ever to end up behind bars for SEC violations.

The case indirectly brought down U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, who accepted a $20,000 consulting fee from Wolfson's family foundation before Wolfson's indictment. He returned the money, but it was too late to save him from disgrace, and he resigned.

In April 1969, while preparing to go to prison and his business empire crumbling around him, Wolfson told The Wall Street Journal that he didn't know he was doing anything wrong.

''I didn't use any fictitious names in selling the stock. No Swiss banks,'' he said. ``When I made the sale, I reported it to the SEC. I'd have had to be an idiot to do anything willfully wrong.''

Two years later, Wolfson was in the news again: He had Larry King -- then a Miami radio host, now a CNN personality -- arrested on grand-larceny charges for allegedly pocketing $5,000, part of a $25,000 payment destined for New Orleans District Attorney James Garrison.

Wolfson's time in prison changed him for good. He became a prison reform advocate. But horse racing ultimately consumed much of his time in his later years and restored his reputation.

Obituaries.

The last obituary of 2007 (Pacific Time) is that of Louis Wolfson, who years ago got into some major legal troubles, but eventually became far better known as the owner and breeder (with his wife Patrice Jacobs Wolfson) of the 1978 Triple Crown winner Affirmed.

He died at the age of 95. He had suffered from Alzheimer's disease and other ailments in recent years.

This is the 1978 Belmont Stakes with Affirmed and Alydar. Still the best race I ever saw.