FROM BALTIMORE — The big headline in Saturday's Baltimore Sun missed by only a word. It read: The Lady and the Champ. Had they made the third word "is," they'd have nailed it.
Rachel Alexandra won the Preakness on Saturday, the fifth filly in 134 years to do so. The last time a filly won this second leg of horse racing's Triple Crown was 1924. That was four years after women were given the right to vote in America.
Women's pride has had its good days, and this was certainly one of them.
This is a story almost too good to be true. Horse racing could hire the best of Madison Avenue and not create this kind of compelling tale.
That Rachel Alexandra actually went off as a 9-5 favorite was startling enough. Even though her 20 1/4 -length victory in the May 1 Kentucky Oaks was stunning and impossible to ignore, it was against other fillies and this was against the boys, who tend to ride rough and expose equine feminine frailty. At least that's the doctrine around the barns and along the backstretch.
Around rickety old Pimlico, which hosted Saturday's race, there were lots of knowing nods and winks from male experts, as they stood in line at the betting windows.
Still, the betting public, which included lots of females on this day, kept her the favorite and certainly watched in satisfaction and awe as she took the lead halfway home, expanded it down the homestretch, and kept digging as late-closing Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird made another run, falling a length short this time.
Aboard Rachel Alexandra was Calvin Borel, who made this an even bigger story by turning in a masterful ride aboard Mine That Bird in the Derby two weeks ago and then opting to ride Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness. He was the first jockey to do that, and now he is the first jockey to win the first two legs of a Triple Crown on different horses.
"This is the best horse I've ever ridden," Borel said, shrugging off suggestions that his victory was vindication for his decision. "I'm paid to win. This was the best horse."
If Rachel Alexandra and Borel were the main stories, Jess Jackson wasn't far behind.
Ten days ago, somebody else owned the horse. Then Jackson, the billionaire founder of Kendall-Jackson winery and a 79-year-old man with the zeal of a 30-something for the concept of risk and reward, saw the Oaks on television and sent his bloodstock agent, John Moynihan, off to do a deal. Moynihan, who did the same thing in 2007 when Jackson acquired a major share of two-time horse of the year Curlin, did it again.
