Cauthen sees Triple Crown in Chrome

— -- Steve Cauthen is scheduled to fly into New York for Saturday's Belmont Stakes, and every time he makes the trip he gets to be 18 years old again, a kid ready to write one of the greatest American sports stories ever told. He sees some of the same faces at the track, hears some of the same voices he heard in 1978, when Cauthen won the Triple Crown around the time most boys his age were getting dressed for the prom.

"I get to relive the race through those people," Cauthen said by phone.

It was an epic race, too, between Cauthen's Affirmed and Jorge Velasquez's Alydar, the climax of a rivalry unlike any the sport had seen. The son of a Kentucky blacksmith, Cauthen arrived at the Belmont as an established superstar. He had 487 victories and more than $6 million in winnings in 1977, and he was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year.

"Same year Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in one World Series game," Cauthen said.

It takes one to know one.