Wednesday, June 5, 2002 | 8:58 a.m.
Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4084.
It'll be terrifically exciting and the fans won't spend a minute in their seats.
The atmosphere will be electric and the lubricated spectators will be stoked, perhaps even rowdy.
The crowd will rise as one at first sight of the great champion, who needs a win to cement his stature and solidify his place in the record books, and they'll keep a close eye on his competition as well. Signs both meaningless and telltale will be discussed as those in the stands look for clues as to what's in store.
How will the favorite react? How will he respond to his most significant challenge? How will he block out the enormity of the situation and a pressure so intense the arrow will be well into the red zone?
Tension? Factor in the buzz, the money and the prestige issues and the showdown that will materialize Saturday figures to leave its viewers, millions of whom will be watching nervously from home, breathless.
History might be made, and it has nothing to do with Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson. It's War Emblem who's up first this weekend and it's easy to summon the passion it takes to wish him well.
I hoped and wrote in 1997, 1998 and 1999 that the horses that won the first two legs of racing's Triple Crown would follow through and take the Belmont, but in each case there was a letdown. Silver Charm, Real Quiet and Charismatic all went into the finale looking to snap a drought that has existed since 1978, but none would prevail and sweep the sport's three major races.
As unlikely as it once seemed, it's War Emblem's turn to test fate. And should it go his way, he will find himself not only endeared and pampered beyond belief during his remaining stay on this earth, but referred to in lovingly glowing terms forevermore.
The bond between Triple Crown winners and the general public is emotional and unbending. It is an affection that is reserved for only those few horses who, as 3-year-olds, won the sport's three major races.
Factors such as the caliber of their opponents, the foibles of their owners and the blemishes of their bloodlines are trivialities reduced to footnotes when a horse wins the Triple Crown. In War Emblem's case, should he become the 12th Triple Crown winner in history, the knocks on his competition as well as the reputation of his haughty trainer and the marginally despised deep pockets of his most recent owner, to say nothing of his unsung apprenticeship, will be but secondary.
It isn't that everyone loves a winner, as any number of two-legged superstars can testify. But everyone loves a horse who possesses the rare ability to ignore the many distractions that an audience of 100,000 fans inevitably provide, and whose determination is such that he is both responsive and will not be denied.
War Emblem is in a position to do what hasn't been done since Affirmed, a generation ago. He's on the verge of an adulation that will neither expire nor diminish with the passage of time.
All he has to do is win a race that is excruciatingly long, famously grueling and relentlessly taxing. He has to do what hasn't been done in 24 years.
He has to be something most thought he was not. He has to come in first Saturday to be one for the ages.
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