This post sent me to the archives, where I have a yellowed copy of Steven Crist\'s New York Times column from 20 years ago (to the day, apparently) titled \"Can Easy Goer Outrun the Odds on a Derby Jinx?\", which begins ...
\"It is getting awfully difficult to make a rational case that Easy Goer will not win the 115th Kentucky Derby 11 days hence.\"
Later,
\"He looks so good both on paper and on the track, that the only arguments now being made against him fall into the realm of voodoo handicapping - the voodoo of streaks and jinxes.\"
No, P-Dub. Sunday Silence does not get a mention in the column, but sheet theory is somewhat hinted at here ...
\"The Gotham-Wood jinx is ... intriguing, because there are some plausible cause-and-effect possibilities. Those two races, run four and two weeks before the Derby, might sap some horses by asking them first to run a fast one-turn mile and then to pick up weight and go an extra furlong.\"
He goes on to note that seven of the eight horses who won both races (prior to \'89) ran in the Derby (one got hurt), and five of them were trounced by anywhere from 6 to 25 lengths. Dike ran a good third in \'69, but was beaten by two better horses (Majestic Prince and Arts and Letters, who also combined to split the Preakness and the Belmont).
That seventh horse?
\"The first horse to win both the Gotham and Wood surely deserved to win the Derby. Native Dancer was unbeaten in nine career starts when he walked into the starting gate for the 1953 Derby ...\"
Now, I love a good jinx or curse story as much as the next guy, but it\'s got to have a horrible wrong at the core to make it a really good one (selling Ruth to the Yankees, or fixing the World Series are both fine examples of kiboshes which lived to a ripe old age before expiring). And, I gotta admit, Native Dancer suffering his only defeat in the Derby (by a head, after getting mugged at the start and getting a wide trip) makes for a pretty good curse. Crist concludes ...
\"None of the previous Gotham and Wood winners deserved to win the Derby, with the singular exception of Native Dancer, whose connection to this Derby is more than a footnote: At stud, Native Dancer sired Raise a Native, who sired Alydar, who sired Easy Goer. How fitting would it be for Easy Goer to end a streak that his great-grandfather had the misfortune to begin.\"
Now, I know you can find Native Dancer in just about any thoroughbred these days. But, still ... Raise a Native also sired Mr. Prospector, who sired Fappiano, who sired Roy, who sired Meguial, who threw I Want Revenge. Can I Want Revenge (this name takes on some meaning here, yes?) win the 2009 Derby? Whattaya say, great-great-great-great-great-(maternal)-grandfather?
