I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Even when he was a few lengths away from the finish, I said (while starting to cry), "I don't believe it yet!" I've screamed and cried so many times when it looked like there was about to be a Triple Crown winner, I couldn't take it in when it was actually happening. Some people probably think I'm weird for caring so much, but the Triple Crown is infinitely important and precious to me. I watched my first Derby in 1993 on a grainy, flickering screen because we were in the process of moving into our house in Moore, Idaho, and my dad had just gotten the TV working so that I could see the race. I sat on the floor because the living room didn't have any furniture yet. So many times since then I've pictured what it would be like to see a horse coming down the stretch and winning the Triple Crown, and I've gotten tears just imagining it. For years I took it too seriously and watched with more agony than pleasure because I was so afraid that someday I would lose that childlike joy and it wouldn't mean as much to me. Therefore it had to happen RIGHT NOW. I caused myself so much misery with that line of thinking. But last year with California Chrome, I realized that it will be okay. I will ALWAYS care that much. And now that it's finally happened, it means even more to me than it ever could have when I was a kid - partly because of the build-up from the years of waiting and close misses, partly because for the past year I've struggled with constant, terrible headaches each and every day, along with debilitating anxiety. It's awesome that I can live through that and still experience such elation when a dream becomes real. After the race, I told my grandma, "I've been waiting for this since I was 7 years old." And she said: "Maybe you were waiting for him."
Ever since Silver Charm in 1997 I have put an effigy of each Derby/Preakness winner beside my tv as my "offering" of devotion and hope for a Triple Crown. Today it finally worked:
Over an hour and a half later and I'm still shaking and feel like I'm going to throw up. This officially tops the most excited I've ever been after a horse race (previous: watching Big Brown's 2008 Preakness in person, shaking for half an hour later while babbling incoherently on the phone to my parents and getting on the train going toward D.C. instead of toward Philadelphia).
