After 30 years, Laffit Pincay's win on Affirmed in the Hollywood Gold Cup still glitters

As horse racing struggles to define its present, it is of value to recall some of its glorious past.

Take, for example, June 24, 1979. Hollywood Park's prestigious Hollywood Gold Cup. Thirty years ago.

The same race will be run Saturday, the 70th edition of a tradition that began with Seabiscuit winning in 1938. By 1979, the Gold Cup purse had been raised to a then-unthinkable $500,000, in an era when crowds of 75,000 for big races were not out of the question.

Saturday's purse will be $700,000, which generates only marginal excitement in an era when Triple Crown races offer $1 million each, a race in Dubai is worth $6 million and the Breeders' Cup has two days of racing with almost all its races $1 million and above.

Today, horse racing throws money at its problems and hopes a generally disinterested public will be turned on. Usually, that begins to happen about the time developing stars are shipped off to the breeding barn, never to be heard from again.

Thirty years ago, Affirmed came to race in the Hollywood Gold Cup and there was little question that the public was turned on.

Affirmed was a star. He was the second straight Triple Crown champion, his sweep in '78 following Seattle Slew's in '77. Memories of the great Secretariat's similar sweep in '73 were still vivid.

As Seattle Slew had done, Affirmed kept racing as a 4-year-old. Stud duty could wait. There was an eager racing public to service first.

When he arrived for the Gold Cup, Affirmed had already run 25 races. After he won his way into the Kentucky Derby with a win in the Santa Anita Derby in April '78, he ran another race two weeks later, before the Derby. Then he swept through the Triple Crown in the next five weeks with three thrilling duels with Alydar.

After an ordeal like that, today's thoroughbreds would be packed in ice and flown to Hawaii to rest for six months.

Stevie Cauthen rode Affirmed to the Triple Crown, but in early '79, as trainer Laz Barrera raced his superstar in pursuit of a second straight horse of the year award, Cauthen went into a terrible slump. He lost aboard Affirmed four straight times -- the great horse would fail to win only seven times in his 29 starts -- and so Barrera looked for new hands at the controls.

The story of how those hands turned out to belong to Laffit Pincay Jr. is a classic.