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You Can Believe The Hype
Original article written by Anne Conradt posted 13 years 0 weeks agoNorman Architecture was sitting in his Baltimore hotel room much of last week, watching the rain come down in buckets.
Architecture was still in a state of shock, after his colt Believe The Hype capped what had been a stunning and heart-stopping road to Louisville when he rallied from 12 lengths off the pace for a three-quarter length win over Stay Awake in the Louisville Derby the week before.
The British owner, who lives with his wife and children in a land where rain is the rule and not the exception, must have felt he was in his element here in rain-drenched Baltimore.
But after his New York-bred colt made believers of the crowd at a sloppy Baltimore Racecourse Friday with one and a quarter length win over Stay Awake once again in the Baltimore Crown, it suddenly occurred to Architecture--and the rest of the SIM world--that he and his colt were standing on the edge of history.
Believe the Hype’s name is now being bandied about with the likes of all-time greats Awake As I Am, Jet Ski, Tremendous and Priceless Forever, as Architecture takes Believe The Hype to Long Island Racecourse to try to become the fifth Triple Crown winner in the history of the SIM.
“Now that he has won the first two legs, I really want to win the third. For him to be only the fifth horse to do that in the SIM and the first since Dave (Shields) did it with Awake As I Am would be a tremendous thing for me.”
Marie Mathews and Robin Tan have stood here before, to be certain. After Mathews’ Tilt A Whirl and Tan’s Loki Masterpiece copped the first two legs of the Triple Crown, they stood by and watched as their hopes for a Triple Crown were dashed in in the most grueling of all three legs of the Triple Crown--the one and one-half mile Long Island Classic.
And that’s exactly the position Architecture and Believe The Hype find themselves in now.
Architecture is the first to admit this son of Throne (who never ran in any Triple Crown races), out of Haley Road (by Worth Fighting For) isn’t a regally bred colt.
“I think I picked up the mare because she was a winner, and she was cheap. I was in my first couple of seasons in the SIM and was trying to build up my broodmare band at the time,” said Architecture.
“I had tried plenty of different mates for Haley Road with little success. Her first foal out of California was her best, a colt by the name of Route One. He won a few races and placed in some stakes. Other (foals from Haley Road) were from sires like Righteous, Empire and Frisco Kid, and the foals were bad, I mean, really bad racers. If it wasn't for Route One, I would have sold her and not got Hype at all.”
Lucky for Architecture that he didn’t sell Haley Road.
It took a while, but the champion he felt she was capable of producing finally came along after he bought the stud rights to Throne.
Even then Architecture wasn’t sure he had a champion in the making.
Believe the Hype’s yearling and early two year old works were far from what you would call Triple Crown worthy, but Architecture has never been one to put much faith in works.
“I can't remember if he got a HTT (hard to tell) or a Wings gallop when he first worked, but I know his workout times were not great either. It's weird that people make so much of workout times. My two best horses, Bodega Bay and Believe The Hype, couldn't even manage sub 59 works for 5f on the dirt. Some people would have sold both of them on the basis of average workouts alone.”
Architecture didn’t give up on his colt, who got his name while his owner was listening to a song from Public Enemy called “Don’t Believe The Hype”.
“I wanted to name him that, but it was too long, so I shortened it to Believe The Hype.”
Even after his colt just barely eked out a win in his maiden special weight debut at Adolescent Acres in California, Architecture still wasn’t sure if he had the makings of a champion, even though Believe The Hype impressed the crowd with a 77 speed figure in that 1 1/16 mile maiden win.
“I thought he would do better over more distance, so I stepped him up to 1 1/8 miles for the Greenspan Stakes, which was his second run. I would usually have gone for a NW2, but I thought I would take a chance knowing that most of the better routers would be at the Steward’s Cup. And the field came up short, so I didn’t have to worry about not getting in because of points.”
When Believe The Hype squeaked out yet another win in the Greenspan Stakes in his second and final race as a two year old, Architecture was ecstatic when he saw his colt’s speed figure.
“He ran a 97 in the Greenspan Stakes. I couldn’t believe it! I had never had a horse run that fast before.”
Yet Architecture still wasn’t sure if his colt’s speedy win in the Greenspan Stakes was a fluke, so he and his colt headed east to Texas for the Texan Derby.
“I wanted to test him again for his first 3 year old run, fearing that his 97 speed figure was just a one off. I entered him in the Texan Derby still only hopeful rather than confident. I was happy to see Amy Schmidt's colt Prophet in the race. Prophet had finished second to the brilliant Redwood in the Steward Cup Juvy, and I knew I would get more of an idea how good Believe The Hype was after running against a tremendous horse like Prophet. When he won that race by a quarter of a length over Prophet, I knew Hype was up there with the best, because Redwood had beaten Prophet by the same margin.”
Believe The Hype, Prophet and Jolene Danner’s colt The Awakening all ran lights out in the Texan Derby, finishing 1-2-3, with speed figures of 96, 94 and 93, and all three had firmly entrenched themselves as Triple Crown contenders in what turned out to be one of the best Texan Derbies ever. The three future Louisville Derby runners all finished an astonishing nine lengths in front of the rest of the field in that blanket finish.
Believe The Hype then finished third in the Kentucky Blue Stakes, his final race before the Louisville Derby. On Derby day in Louisville, the Steward announced after her race call that it was the first time a horse had ever won the Derby after finishing worse than second in a prep race prior to the Derby.
In the slop in Baltimore on Friday, Architecture’s colt also did something he had never done before. He finally put some daylight between himself and the rest of the field as he crossed the wire.
In his five previous wins, including the one over Stay Awake in the Derby, Believe The Hype had never finished more than three quarters of a length ahead of the competition.
This colt loves to stop hearts when he wins, but his daylight win in the Baltimore Crown may mean that Architecture’s colt is peaking at just the right time here before he heads off to Long Island to see if he can become the fifth Triple Crown winner in the history of the SIM.
Can this not-so-royally bred colt do it?
There’s little doubt that Believe The Hype may be facing a much tougher and bigger field than he did in Baltimore, when he won the Crown.
After his win in the Louisville Derby, Architecture bought new silks, some regal silks, in fact, for his admittedly not so royally bred colt’s jockey, Frederick Dixon, to wear.
“My original Skull and Crossbones silks were okay, a little bit of a joke because I like pirates, and I had called my stable Buccaneer Stables. When I won the Derby, I decided to get some more serious ones. My current colors are based on the actual racing colors of Queen Elizabeth II,” said Architecture.
If Believe The Hype does win the Triple Crown, this emperor’s jockey will indeed have new clothes to wear in the winner’s circle on Long Island.