Скачать с ютуб 1979 Travers Stakes - General Assembly : CBS Broadcast в хорошем качестве

1979 Travers Stakes - General Assembly : CBS Broadcast

Next to the Daily Racing Form listing of five of the seven starters in last Saturday's Travers Stakes at Saratoga was an asterisk indicating that those horses could handle a muddy track. The other two had no mud mark. When rain drenched the track, making the going difficult and tiring, bettors gave those marks and those non-marks considerable thought. They could have saved themselves the effort. One of the two without a mark was General Assembly, an enigmatic critter who went out and won the 110th Travers by 15 splashy lengths. The General has led a puzzling racing life, up one day and down the next. Racing fans adore him after one race and deride him after the next. Until last week's Travers he was known primarily as "Secretariat's best son," but that has meant very little because Secretariat has been anything but the sire he was expected to be when he was sent to stud after his stunning two years as a runner. Well, what General Assembly did in the Travers was stunning and more. He ran over a track rated "sloppy" in 2:00 for the 1� miles to set not only a stakes record but a track record as well, and Saratoga is the oldest track in the U.S., having opened its iron gates 116 years ago. The field the General left in his wake was the best group of 3-year-olds assembled since the Kentucky Derby. Not since Secretariat himself won the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths has there been so overwhelming a triumph in a race of such high significance. But a question remains, one as simple as an old racing adage: Is General Assembly just a horse for a course? The horse obviously thrives at Saratoga. He has run four races there and won them all. Elsewhere he has been victorious only twice in 11 starts. This spring General Assembly ran in every leg of the Triple Crown, finishing second, fifth and seventh, respectively, and in the Belmont he was but a blur in the distance behind Coastal. Moments after the Travers, LeRoy Jolley, the General's trainer, had a self-aggrandizing flight of fancy. "There has been some talk about making the Saratoga meeting longer," he said. "As far as General Assembly is concerned, they should make it a year-round meeting." Forget the absence of a mud mark. The General's performances show that he likes an off track. In 1978 he came to prominence by winning the six-furlong Saratoga Special in 1:09, the quickest time for that race in 73 years. The track that day was listed as only "good." General Assembly's second-place finish behind Spectacular Bid in the Derby was over a wet but fast track. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vaul...