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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Elizabeth Mitchell
Aired June 08, 2002 - 09:52 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, racing has long been heralded for all its glitz and glamour as the sport of kings. There can also be a darker side to the business. In her new book, "Three Strides Before the Wire," Elizabeth Mitchell looks at the dark and beautiful world of horse racing.
She joins us now from New York to discuss the Belmont Stakes and, of course, her book.
Good to see you this morning.
ELIZABETH MITCHELL, AUTHOR, "THREE STRIDES BEFORE THE WIRE": Nice to see you.
PHILLIPS: All right. Elizabeth, let's start quickly, and then we're going to move into your book, because I want to talk about that.
MITCHELL: OK.
PHILLIPS: War Emblem, and, you know, can he pull off this Triple Crown?
MITCHELL: Well, I certainly hope so, just for the sake of the people that I know who work at the track. I mean, they need this for morale, they need it for business. And because people -- they need that sort of general audience that cares about a horse hero.
And since we haven't had one since 1978, it's been a long time coming.
PHILLIPS: All right. Your book, it talks about a relationship with jockey Chris Antley (ph), trainer Deeling Lucas (ph), owners Bob and Beverly Lewis (ph), and 1999 Derby winner Charismatic.
Kind of tell, why did you pick this group, and what do you really reveal about the relationship among all these individuals and horse?
MITCHELL: Well, Charismatic is the last horse to be in the position that War Emblem is right now. Charismatic got -- won the Derby, won the Preakness, and was poised to win the Belmont. And he became the favorite at that point and was racing for, you know, history just like War Emblem.
And then Charismatic very sort of tragically broke down at the very end of the race, and his jockey pulled him up as quickly as he could and jumped off him and basically saved the horse's life by letting -- by keeping the horse from putting the weight on his -- the leg that had been hurt.
So that was, you know, shows you how much of a heartbreak the Belmont Stakes can be, and, you know, why people are so attached to the idea of War Emblem actually winning this year.
PHILLIPS: Now, back on the Derby winner, Charismatic, I understand you put a pretty crucial bet on this race.
MITCHELL: That's true, I...
PHILLIPS: Do share.
MITCHELL: Yes, it's an odd story. But I'm usually a political reporter, but I went down to that Kentucky Derby in 199 with a person I cared about very deeply who had leukemia but was in recovery at that time. We went as one of those things, like, you know, live your life to the fullest, drove down. I had a dream the night before that people kept coming up to me in an art gallery and saying, Do you think that paintings have charisma? Do you think they have charisma? And went on and on.
I woke up, I thought it was odd. We went to the track and opened the program, and the -- there is this horse, Charismatic, which we saw the names for the first time. He was the long shot. We put our money on him, and in this unbelievable, you know, coincidence...
PHILLIPS: Wow.
MITCHELL: ... he ended up winning.
PHILLIPS: Oh, my gosh, that's a neat little...
MITCHELL: And...
PHILLIPS: ... sidebar there.
MITCHELL: ... it was amazing.
PHILLIPS: Wow. Well, you also delve into a number of the scandals that are involved in this whole racing phenomena. Let's talk a little bit about that. What do people not know?
MITCHELL: Well, I mean, the darkest thing I came across was just that, you know, back in the mid-'80s there was, you know, a horse- killing farm out in New Jersey where people would send their horses after they had finished their racing careers, and for insurance money would have them sort of accidentally die during thunderstorms and all the rest.
And that was very brutal, I mean, you know, the things that they had come up with to do away with the horses.
The other thing is, the jockeys, they get injured in the most grisly ways, and they also have to deal with these weight issues, which, you know, they're -- it's best if they stay around 106 pounds. And for a jockey who's five-foot-one to five-foot-four, that means, you know, losing 80 pounds of their natural weight.
And so Lafitte Pankai (ph), who's the winningest jockey of all time, told me that if he ate one normal meal one night, he would have to quit racing for a month just to get back.
PHILLIPS: Oh, my gosh. It's like what wrestlers go through, I remember they...
MITCHELL: Oh, yes.
PHILLIPS: ... want to lose that weight quickly, and -- oh.
MITCHELL: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Well...
MITCHELL: Yes, that's a...
PHILLIPS: Go ahead, I'm sorry.
MITCHELL: No, I just -- I -- that was interesting to me because I, you know, started to hear about some of these other athletes who have to do it, but it's such a small world, it's, you know, wrestlers, gymnasts, and jockeys, so...
PHILLIPS: Hey, and jockeys are so small as it is, come on.
MITCHELL: Yes.
PHILLIPS: You know?
MITCHELL: Yes.
PHILLIPS: All right, the book is "Three Strides Before the Wire," Elizabeth Mitchell, very interesting. If you are fascinated with the sport, the money, the history, the scandal, she's got it all in there.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
MITCHELL: Thank you for having me.
PHILLIPS: You bet.
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