Our biggest heartbreaks in the Belmont Stakes

This week, we're strolling down memory lane to revisit several Belmont Stakes that hold special personal meaning for us. Our second "team blog" looks back at our most disappointing Belmont renewals.

Vance Hanson: If I were absolutely true to myself, this choice would be a no-brainer. Real Quiet's heartbreaking, photo-finish loss to Victory Gallop in 1998 has virtually no equal for obvious reasons. However, Victory Gallop was a future champion, and as the years pass I don't mind when Triple Crown bids are foiled by deserving adversaries. Sticking more in my craw are Triple Crown bids snuffed out by lesser talents, such as Touch Gold and Birdstone. Then there's the other type of Belmont winner, the type we've seen too much of in recent decades. The ones that make you ask: "Why/How is this horse a classic winner?" The first one I remember feeling this way about was 1990 Belmont winner Go and Go. Relatively young and uninformed about the training brilliance of Dermot Weld, who would make it a habit of winning all around the world, I found Go and Go's eight-length blowout preposterous at the time. I still kind of do. The colt had won the off-the-turf Laurel Futurity on a muddy track the previous fall, but was duly exposed on a fast track in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, and then was unconventionally prepped for the Belmont on the turf in Ireland. In retrospect, he was only 7-1 in the Belmont for a reason -- the field aside from Unbridled was modest. When your first experiences of Triple Crown action are seeing horses like Alysheba, Bet Twice, Winning Colors, Risen Star, Sunday Silence, Easy Goer, Unbridled, and Summer Squall win, it's horses like Go and Go that cause that initial crack in your rose-colored glasses.

Kellie Reilly: My most excruciating Belmont loss came in 1997: Silver Charm was mugged in the final strides by Touch Gold, who ripped the Triple Crown from his seeming grasp. Although the margin was more decisive than the infinitesimal near-miss suffered by Real Quiet the following year, this one hit me much harder. Unlike Real Quiet -- and the other recent Triple Crown seekers who came up short -- Silver Charm was a horse I'd been rooting for throughout the spring. When gearing up for the Derby trail over the winter, I noticed that Silver Charm was bred on a Buckpasser/*Princequillo cross similar to Spend a Buck. And he was trained by that amusing fellow Bob Baffert, who came so close in the 1996 Derby with Cavonnier. Here was a serious contender to follow. Silver Charm only confirmed that opinion in his preps at Santa Anita, where even his losses were full of merit. And after the battle-loving gray came out on top in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, surely the 1 1/2-mile Belmont would only play to his strengths. I had a lot of respect for Touch Gold as a potential spoiler, but when he apparently retreated on the far turn, I thought that Silver Charm had it. No way Free House was going to gain revenge at this distance. Silver Charm just had to keep grinding it out, and the Triple Crown was his. I could hardly believe my eyes when a resurgent Touch Gold swooped fast, late, and most importantly wide, so that Silver Charm couldn't see him and try to fight back. Rarely have I felt as sick after a race -- and hearing all of the bad puns about gold being better than silver only made it worse.