A decade and a half after a horse owned by Texans owner Bob McNair prevented another horse from winning the Triple Crown, McNair hopes to block the equine three-peat a second time.
McNair’s horse, Street Life, will race in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday. McNair hopes that the four-legged involuntary athlete will beat I’ll Have Another, which is trying to win the first Triple Crown since Affirmed accomplished the feat in 1978.
“Street Life is a horse that is a come-from-behind horse and he likes to run longer distances,” McNair told FOX 26 in Houston. “This is a mile and a half. If he gets a good ride I think he’ll be very competitive.”
McNair knows that an upset wouldn’t be the popular outcome.
“We faced this situation 15 years ago when we owned Touch Gold, and Silver Charm had won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and was going for the Triple Crown and we upset Silver Charm and all of the fans in New York booed us,” McNair said.
“Granted having a Triple Crown winner would be exciting for horse racing, but that only lasts a little while,” McNair added. “A nice, exciting race and an upset creates just as much excitement.”
Generally, he’s right. But we all want to witness history (even when the subject of said history has no idea what’s going on and just wants to get on with the “put out to stud” phase of his career). And the history that comes from a Triple Crown hasn’t been made in 34 years.