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Sunday, June 08, 2008

2008 Belmont Stakes

I enjoy the horses. I enjoy betting on them and photographing them.

So I lugged my gear, including a rented 400mm telephoto, out to Belmont Park for what many had hoped was going to be a great day in the sport. Big Brown had a chance to become the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years, but as we all know now, he just ran out of gas.

>> Slideshow: Images From The Belmont

I've shot five Kentucky Derbys, but this was my first Belmont. Even when I know the lay of the land, as I do around Churchill Downs, there are always some curveballs that call for the need to improvise. I feel like I'm good at rolling with the punches. Saturday, however, was a fiasco in many ways.



The first Penn Station train to Belmont was scheduled to leave at 9:59 a.m. I got there at about 9:20 a.m., thinking that would be plenty of time. I was wrong. As I was in line, I heard an "all aboard" call that I thought was for Belmont, so I hurried downstairs with the masses. Again I was wrong, but the train dude said no worries, I can get on the train he was standing next to, and advised me to get off at Jamaica, then buy a ticket to Belmont. "It's cheaper to do it that way, and I'm in a good mood this morning," he said.

Little did I know it was going to take 30 years to find the ticket office once I got to Jamaica, and of course the automated machines weren't working, so as I waited in line, I missed the train to Belmont. The next one would push through in 30 minutes.

Once I got to the park, I bumped into the excellent Louisville-based columnist Pat Forde, who guided me to the media elevator for which I'd previously spent a good half hour looking. Of course, the media credentials were elsewhere, so I spent another 30 minutes looking and asking, but I finally got it and was ready to find my free boxed lunch in the photographers' room.

I chowed my lunch, ran down to the track, marked my spot along the rail, and then walked around some. When I lived in Louisville, I'd become quite familiar with Churchill Downs, but Belmont Park probably demanded just as much walking. This place was huge.

But because I'd rented a lens, I didn't horse around too much between races. I stayed close to my spot on the rail so I could watch the 10 races leading up to the big one, shooting and testing and sampling.

I was able to catch one horse, the No. 7 in the sixth race, freak out for some unknown reason in the moments after competing (see the video above). Perhaps it was the 90-plus degree heat. But his handlers were spraying him with cool water and trying to calm him down. And just when it seemed they'd turned the trick, he'd buck and bounce some more, turning nearby fans into eyewitnesses. Many compact cameras were raised high in the air until the horse finally did relax and decide it was time to play nice, head back up the tunnel and call it a day.

Shortly later, back at my post on the outside rail alongside the real photographers, I'd struck up a conversation with one of them. I noticed a twang, and sure enough, he was from Louisville and we had some mutual friends. Ted Tarquinio was stumped on why I couldn't extend the telephoto lens, but told me not to be nervous about asking another pro nearby, even though some of these guys can be fairly pompous. "Dude, so what, you're here to get your one good shot, and you'll never see this guy again," Ted said.

But Jeff Snyder wasn't pompous. He was cool, and figured out my lens, and then told me he works for the fine folks who rented me my lens. Small world.

So I tested some more stuff, and got ready for the big race, which was fast approaching. And my shirt was soaked. I hit the clubhouse and the paddock and another spot here and there. Good buddy John Charlton was busy saying hi to Shaquille O'Neal, David Hasselhoff, Steve Guttenberg and Bo Derek, all while I was down on the rail working on my farmer's tan. Steve Guttenberg! Why couldn't I have been there?

I bought my tickets -- 10 $1 winners on Big Brown that I was not going to cash; instead I'd planned to frame and give as gifts to friends in the event of a Big Brown victory -- including a couple of $2-across-the-board bets on some longer shots. Then I was in for the long haul.

The race was pretty uneventful, actually. Big Brown was a big disappointment. He just ran out of gas. I didn't really get the picture I was hoping for Saturday. I honestly got nothing worthwhile.

So knowing that trying to get on a train after the race was just a ridiculous fantasy, I cooled my heels and waited to catch up with some friends. Charlton, who'd just bought my car two months ago, was on his way to meet me, and I was also trying to say hello to Fred Cowgill, who, despite the disgusting, daylong heat, was still wearing a crispy shirt with sleeves fully extended and the knot of his tie all the way up to the neck. How did he do that for 12 hours?

On the way back to the car, we passed ESPN star Chris Fowler, who as host of "College Football GameDay" has the best job in the business ... by far. I got a good laugh from him when I told him I was in need of his mother's lemon meringue pie recipe.

Years ago, back when a roommate and I used to have late-night parties, we'd call ESPN after many beers and ask to talk to their on-air people. We got through with surprising ease. But one night we got Fowler's voice mail and the outgoing greeting went something like this: "Press 1 to leave me a voice mail, press 2 to return to the operator, press 3 for my checking account number and press 4 for my mother's lemon . . . " Funny dude, he is.

But that was the last laugh of the night. When I parted from Charlton and his crew, two hours after the big race had ended, there were still thousands of people waiting for trains. So I called Charlton, who despite dreading a long drive back to Hartford, Conn., offered to take me somewhere not too out of the way for him, like Queens, where I'd get on a train and find my way home.

So I met him at his shuttle bus, and once we got off the bus near his car, I realized I'd left my cell phone on it, so I hustled over there, and once I returned and started to walk away, I realized that while I was looking for the phone, I'd set my monopod down and left it. So I ran back and got it.

We piled into Charlton's car, which was mine until eight weeks ago, and headed for the interstate. They dropped me at a corner that reminded me of the East St. Louis neighborhood where Clark Griswold took his family for an impromptu drive two decades ago.

Once I got into the train station, guess who didn't have his wallet? Thankfully, Charlton was only a half block away, so I hurried back down to retrieve the wallet. I later realized my ballcap was in his car. I left four things behind in two hours, but got three of them back. Charlton can't find my baseball hat, and I have no idea where it is.

So I got back to the warm apartment at about 10 p.m. and there were certainly cold beers in the fridge. The television told me that on the day horse racing history was almost made, one of its biggest fans, sports TV pioneer Jim McKay had died at 87.

And in other bad news, friend Mike Budenholzer was passed over for the Phoenix Suns' head coaching job.

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