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CNN Live At Daybreak

War Emblem Poised to Win Thoroughbred Racing's Highest Honor

Aired June 07, 2002 - 05:54   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: War Emblem is poised to win thoroughbred racing's highest honor. He's the favorite in Saturday's Belmont stakes and if he pulls it off, War Emblem could become the first Triple Crown winner in nearly a quarter century.

CNN's Matt Morrison reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's War Emblem. War Emblem to win! He wins the Preakness!

MATT MORRISON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The jet black colt with the white lightning streak on his forehead stands a mile and a half away from sports immortality. War Emblem is poised to take his place in line with thoroughbred royalty like Citation, Secretariat and Seattle Slew. But the excitement surrounding this bid to become the first Triple Crown winner since affirmed in 1978 is tempered by the truth of just how improbable it is to complete the feat.

WILLIAM NACK, "GQ" MAGAZINE: There's a sense of moment in the air because now we're beginning to say, as we were saying in 1973, it'll never be done again. It's too hard. It's too difficult. Suddenly Secretariat won it and then two more won it. We began to feel it was easy. Now we know again how hard it is and how difficult it is for a horse in a five week span to run three different races over three different race tracks at three different distances. It is as difficult a thing to pull off in sport as there is.

MORRISON: In more than a century and a quarter of racing, only 11 thoroughbreds have claimed the Triple Crown. Fifteen others fell short in the final, most punishing run at the Belmont stakes.

Trainer Bob Baffert's experienced this twice himself in the last five years, but with War Emblem, he appears undaunted.

BOB BAFFERT, WAR EMBLEM'S TRAINER: Distance, when they start going a mile and an eighth, that just separates them all. And when they've got a mile and a quarter that really separates them. And so this horse, the further they go the better he is, and that's why I've always thought the Belmont would be the easiest race.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A couple months ago, nobody gave this horse a chance to win the Derby, much less the Triple Crown. And Baffert took this horse. It was a rank horse. It has bone chips. And he sort of tamed this beast and got it focused enough to where, you know, it could win these races.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're a race fan, he's won impressively two different ways, and if you're not a race fan, then he's exciting and he's threatening to do something that nobody has done in a long time and that's a good thing.

MORRISON: A good thing for thoroughbred racing would be a great thing for War Emblem and Baffert, who is acutely aware of the magnitude of this occasion.

BAFFERT: Just like McGwire, when he was going for the home run, you know, I hardly watch baseball. I watched every game of his. I made sure, I made it a point. I wanted to see that home run being hit. There's history getting ready to be made.

MORRISON: Matt Morrison, CNN, Elmont, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Good luck to War Emblem.

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