Female horse Rachel favored in Preakness. I wouldn't miss it for the world:
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Updated: May 15, 2009, 5:28 PM EST These are confusing, gender-bending times in the world of sports. First, Manny Ramirez is busted for taking a female fertility drug. Now, the Preakness.
The most talked-about entrants are the 8-to-5 filly, Rachel Alexandra, and the 6-to-1 gelding, Mine That Bird. But they share more than short odds. There's not a testicle between them (kind of like the Lakers in Houston).
As today's athletes seek to produce testosterone like alchemists once sought to make gold, this Preakness field qualifies as irony. I feel I should've seen it coming, though. I mean, once Rafael Palmeiro started hustling Viagra, all bets were off.
That's not to say this isn't a good thing. To begin with, chicks dig Triple Crown races. According to NBC, the Kentucky Derby is one of only three major sporting events (the winter and summer Olympics being the others) that draw more female viewers than male. After Wimbledon, the Preakness draws the fifth-largest female audience. And this year promises to be even more estrogenic. The network has taken to promoting the race with the voice of a ten-year-old girl:
"Twelve boys and one girl, guess who the favorite is?"
Sounds like my kid. "Everybody knows that boys are scared of girls," says Holiday Kriegel, herself a 9-year-old equestrian. "I'm betting $100."
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"Where'd you get a hundred?" I ask, wondering if she'll be good enough to tip the father-groom who spends his Saturday mornings shoveling manure.
"It's mine."
"That's a lot of money to lose. You know, the boys usually beat the girls."
"This time a girl's going to win."
My kid might not have a future as a handicapper, but that attitude of hers is money — in the ratings and at the betting window. Nothing incites the interest of the casual fan so much as the prospect of a girl kicking boys' asses. What's true with automobiles — would anybody with a life really care about Indy car racing if not for Danica Patrick? — might be doubly true with horses. The Preakness promises to be more vicious than the proceedings in divorce court.
That's not to say I won't be rooting for Rachel Alexandra — for my daughter, sure, but also as a rebuke to all the miserably self-righteous PETA people who sought to persecute a jockey after Eight Belles broke down at last year's Derby. Problem is, while the oddsmakers might look kindly on Rachel Alexandra, history does not.
Of the 52 fillies to start in the Preakness, only four have been winners. The most recent was in 1924. Who could forget the great Nellie Morse? It's pretty much the same for the other Triple Crown races. Only three fillies have won the Belmont, and another three the Kentucky Derby, going back to Ruthless in 1867. Most were treated like veil-less women in Peshawar, which is to say, less than gallantly.
In 1980, after winning the Derby, filly Genuine Risk was allegedly roughed up by Codex, ridden by Angel Cordero, in the Preakness.
"When you're running in the Preakness you don't say, 'Excuse me, ma'am,'" Codex's trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, told reporters.
According to the New York Daily News, Cordero received a bomb threat at his home. And that was before PETA.
Next, consider the saga of another Derby-winning filly, Winning Colors, in 1988. Trainer Woody Stephens vowed to use up his horse, Forty Niner, to end her chances at the Preakness. "We may finish next-to-last," said Stephens, "but she'll finish last."
As it happened, Stephens' horse finished seventh and Winning Colors, exhausted from Forty Niner's challenge, third.
In the case of Rachel Alexandra, there has already been an aborted plot by rival owners to enter enough horses — the Preakness will only take 14, max — to block the filly.
Expect the race to be more of the same. But expect this filly to overcome. The battle of the sexes is drawing closer with each generation. In 1431, there was Joan of Arc killing Englishmen. In 1973, Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs. The year 1989 saw Julie Krone get the better of a male jockey, Joe Bravo, in an altercation at the Meadowlands. The 2009 Preakness will be remembered for Rachel Alexandra.
It's a new world, fellas. Pretty soon we're going to wake up and find out all those great baseball heroes are geldings, too.
Horseracing HEADLINES
Friesan Fire set for Preakness run
Mine That Bird heads to Pimlico
Kentucky racing panel upholds vet's suspension
Rival owners nix plan to box filly out of Preakness
No positive steroid test at Derby, Oaks
MORE BY MARK KRIEGELOn the Mark: How Manny can appease the fans
A filly favored? Get used to it, men
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Horses prepped for Preakness
Hear from the trainers and jockeys on the eve of The Preakness. Find out what the Triple Crown experience has been like for Mine That Bird's team. More FOX Sports Video >
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