When he’s right, Classic Empire tough to beat
It’s been just 10 years since Street Sense became the first horse to hit the Breeders’ Cup JuvenileKentucky Derby double, and Nyquist repeated the feat
last year. So nobody talks about the Juvenile jinx anymore, but this spring trainer Mark Casse might have been wondering if it had made a comeback.
Little went right for his 2-year-old champion and Juvenile winner, Classic Empire, as he started on the Derby trail. He sweated up badly before his 3-year-old debut Feb. 4 in the Holy Bull Stakes at sultry Gulfstream Park and faded to a distant third as the 1-2 favorite. That was disturbing enough, and it got a lot worse.
“It’s tough,” Casse said. “When you have the
only be three practices — but because it had the visions of a week-long vacation to Rome. Far from it.”
Players provided backpacks filled with shirts, pants and blankets to refugees from war-torn countries; sat 50 yards from Pope Francis while experiencing a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square; toured the Vatican, Colosseum and other tourist sites; and attended an opera.
“It also helped further study abroad opportunities for athletes, a movement Harbaugh has spearheaded,” Rowland wrote me. “He gives
players the entire month of May off, which is remarkable in the current age of uber-competitiveness. About two dozen players are studying abroad and another dozen are doing international internships.”
Bravo, Captain Khaki. I say that with no hint of cynicism. It would be disingenuous to point out one school’s attack on education — I’m looking at you, North Carolina — without praising another school for going above and beyond. Michigan went all-in by seeing value in schooling its football players outside the university setting.
But the Wolverines do not have dibs on that pot of educational gold. I found sweet satisfaction
in Cleveland using the No. 1 pick of the NFL draft to select a reader of poetry and lover of paleontology. Granted, the Browns selected pass rusher Myles Garrett out of Texas A&M because he buries quarterbacks’ bones, not because he enjoys excavating fossils, but credit the team for not being scared off by Garrett’s non-football interests.
There exists a managerial mindset in the NFL that players are at their most productive when focusing solely on playbooks. Too many outside interests dilutes the demon on the field, they maintain.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall, who retired at age 26 to pursue writing, explained
in a MEL magazine podcast last year how the NFL frowns upon wellrounded draft prospects.
“When I was going through the NFL Combine there was a team that asked me, ‘If you have all these other interests — like reading, dancing or art — what makes you a football player?’ ” Mendenhall said. “There is this idea of what a football player is and what he looks like.”
The Browns pushed back against the athleteas-animal stereotype by selecting Garrett. Michigan provided an educational experience beyond brick and mortar. Both are richer for it.