INDExtra

'Bo-Rail' sets sights on Triple Crown

by Leslie Turk

Despite that the last thoroughbred to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes was Affirmed in 1978, once again Calvin Borel is giving all of us reason to hope history is indeed in the making.

Despite that the last thoroughbred to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes was Affirmed in 1978, once again Calvin Borel is giving all of us reason to hope history is indeed in the making. The confident Catahoula native and Churchill Downs legend -- who this weekend won his third Kentucky Derby in four years -- has already declared he and Super Saver will win the elusive Triple Crown.

The horse racing buzz is clearly all about Borel and the colt he rode to victory by 2 1/2 lengths, the likely favorite in the Preakness Stakes, scheduled for May 15 at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. This time, Borel won't likely be switching mounts. Last year he failed in his attempt to be the first jockey to win the Triple Crown with different horses.

After riding Mine That Bird to victory in the Derby, he won the Preakness aboard filly Rachel Alexandra, beating Mine That Bird. He was back on Mine That Bird in the Belmont Stakes, but Summer Bird, ridden by Maurice native Kent Desormeaux, came from the back of the pack to win, with Borel and Mine That Bird finishing in third place. (Desormeaux ran third in this weekend's Kentucky Derby aboard Paddy O'Prado.)

Borel, nicknamed "Bo-Rail" for his preference of riding the rail when he races (which he did flawlessly on a drenched track over the weekend), was profiled in The Independent Weekly in May 2007.