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Belmont ends in tears
Charismatic's racing days over after breaking leg in pursuit of Triple Crown
Instead, yesterday's 131st running of the Belmont Stakes ended in tragedy as Charismatic crossed the wire third, then broke down in front of a Belmont Park record crowd of 85,818 and millions more watching on television.
His Triple Crown hopes buried in the dirt kicked up by winner Lemon Drop Kid, a bone in the former claiming horse's left-front leg snapped just two jumps past the wire.
Jockey Chris Antley slowed the powerful thoroughbred as quickly as possible and leapt from the horse 200 yards past the wire.
Antley desperately grabbed the horse's leg to keep Charismatic from pounding it on the ground, an act that possibly saved the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner's life, but not his racing career.
As a stunned crowd looked on, the chestnut was promptly loaded in to a horse ambulance and taken to his stall. X-rays revealed a condular fracture at the bottom of the cannon and a crack of the sesamoid -- two bones toward the bottom of his thin front leg.
"He is through as a racehorse," veterinarian Dr. Larry Bramlage said after evaluating x-rays. "We expect him to be fine as a stallion. It is pure speculation as to where it happened, but it likely was right at the wire."
The breakdown overshadowed the performance of Lemon Drop Kid, the latest to play the spoiler in racing's elusive Triple Crown. Ridden by jockey Jose Santos (of Canadian horse of the year Chief Bearhart fame), the 30-1 winner was a head in front of 54-1 runner-up Vision and Verse. Time for the mile and a half was 2:27 4/5.
THIRD IN A ROW
Charismatic was a length and a half back in third. His failure to capture the Belmont made him the 15th horse to lose the Triple Crown in the final stop, keeping Affirmed in 1978 as the most recent of 11 winners.
It was the third spring in a row a horse came to the Belmont with a shot at the Crown -- Real Quiet and Silver Charm fell short the past two years.
It will be debated hotly as to whether Charismatic was pushed to the brink of destruction by Antley and trainer D. Wayne Lukas. The Belmont was the late-blooming colt's fifth start in nine weeks, a rigid test for fragile and still-growing horses, although Lukas had worked him stoutly into shape throughout the Triple Crown.
Not only that, after being caught in a duel with filly Silverbulletday through the opening mile, Antley aggressively went at Charismatic in the stretch, lashing him 11 times with a left-handed whip.
"All week we talked about how maintenance-free this horse was and how durable he is," Lukas said. "It's racing, these things happen ... It's not an easy part of the game.
"I don't know where it occurred, it could have happened in different strides because there are two fractures. I think we would have dominated the race, frankly."
Antley, who had risen from his own personal hardships to share the hero's role during this Triple Crown with Charismatic, visibly was shaken by the miserable end.
"This horse gave us a lot, he gave America a lot," Antley said through tears. "As an athlete, he ran through the pain."
Veterinarians expect Charismatic will undergo surgery, perhaps as early as today. Last night, the colt was resting sedated in his stall.
It will take much longer to mend the image of the disaster for those who watched it.