ESPN The Triple Crown

Fly San Diego to Baltimore, avoiding tornadoes. Bus from Baltimore/Washington International Airport to rental car lot, which is apparently located in West Virginia. Drive 25 miles through a gully-washing rainstorm to hotel. Lie awake until normal midnight bedtime, California time. Arise, fumble around, and somehow find Pimlico, then enter backstretch just as Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird crosses your path on the way to the racetrack.

It takes years of experience to execute a plan with such perfect timing. That, and sleeping in an extra hour, which meant missing Rachel Alexandra's gallop for assistant trainer Scott Blasi shortly after 6 a.m. This was inexcusable, since Rachel Alexandra is America's Darling, and America's Darling is, according to more than a few sportswriters, in mortal danger of joining Eight Belles and Ruffian as the latest marquee victim of racing fillies against colts.

"Horse racing better hold its breath and hope this filly gets to the finish line healthy and happy." -- Rick Bozich, Louisville Courier-Journal.

"Thoroughbred racing fans await Saturday's Preakness Stakes with high anticipation as the outstanding filly Rachel Alexandra prepares to challenge the boys. There will be some trepidation, too." -- Tom Pedulla, USA Today.

"Rachel Alexandra might be the best filly we've seen since Ruffian, and she undoubtedly will attempt to reach even deeper and find yet another gear when pushed to the absolute limit, as she likely would be in the Preakness or Belmont. That is the best argument of all to practice patience and make certain she's 100% before the gate opens." -- Randy Moss, MSNBC.

Thank goodness. Now we have been warned that something bad might happen in a horse race. Where were these Jeremiahs, though, back in 1990 when Go for Wand took the track for her fatal Breeders' Cup Distaff at Belmont Park? Or in 1984 when High Haven and Sweet Diane went innocently postward in the Santa Ana Handicap at Santa Anita but did not return? Or in 2001, when Spook Express journeyed from New York to California only to die in a spray of muddy, tattered turf in Hollywood Park's Matriarch? Or in 1996, when Matiara bled to death in the ambulance from an internal hemorrhage when a fractured pelvis pierced her femoral artery on the backstretch of Arlington's Beverly D? I could have used a warning on those bleak afternoons.

Michael Moore, documentarian, author and charming blowhard, suggested in "Dude, Where's My Country?" that this nation could be rechristened the United States of BOO! He has a point. Fear of something, anything, has become a cultural tic.

So let no one say we have not been warned. But in fairness, to follow the thinking, shouldn't the sports public be equally fearful for the safety of the other 13 horses in the Preakness? Or the 10 running in the Woodlawn Stakes on the Preakness undercard? Or the full field of maiden claimers running at 10:30 Saturday night at Charles Town?

Fillies are different from colts. Not more breakable, just different. I suppose it is human nature to worry about another flood every time storm clouds gather, but is that any way to live? How about this...instead of letting the ghosts of Ruffian and Eight Belles loom, picture Rachel Alexandra channeling the blithe spirits of Estrapade winning the Arlington Million, Very Subtle winning the Breeders' Cup Sprint, Allez France taking the Arc de Triomphe or Goldikova soaring in the Breeders' Cup Mile. Those guys never knew what hit them.

"Nobody will forget Ruffian and nobody will forget Eight Belles, but life comes with tragedy," wrote Rick Reilly in ESPN The Magazine. "Fifteen men have died at Indy and yet drivers still enter it. Many women have died running marathons, but runners keep doing them. Thoroughbreds are born to race." *** As for Mine That Bird, he seemed happy as a puppy and still no taller than a tabletop as he padded softly around Pimlico's deep, sandy track Friday morning, around 7:30. His trainer, Chip Woolley, hopped up on a plastic folding chair, using his crutches for handlebars, and peered through the mist as his Derby winner went once around in a full-throated gallop.

"Atta boy, Bird," Woolley said as the gelding headed home at a strong trot, barely raising a breath. "You know, I think these deeper Eastern tracks are really suited to him."

Woolley is savoring his first trip to Pimlico the same way he took in the Derby. "Just to be a part of all the history represented here is truly special," he said.

Woolley stops short, though, at the local cuisine. Specifically, the abundance of Maryland shellfish. He means no offense, but being from a state with no sea coast, he is naturally suspicious of eating something that never leaves its house, for anything.

"If it don't have fur, I'm not eating it," Woolley said, a sentiment echoed by the more cosmopolitan Kentucky boy Larry Jones, who has spent considerably more time training on the East Coast.

"Being where I'm from, it's been hard getting used to shellfish," Jones said. "I still prefer what I eat to be roped and drug in." ***

It is also a pleasure to report that Heather Radford, Miss Preakness 2009, was on the job Friday at Pimlico, in anticipation of the Miss Preakness Stakes later in the day. Radford, who said she breezed through a physiology final at the University of Maryland that morning, said she would be rooting for Rachel Alexandra on Saturday (no surprise) but would be just as pleased to see Mine That Bird come through.

"I really want a Triple Crown winner," Radford said. "I've been waiting 23 years to see one." Radford is 23.

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