Two Times a Jewel

Smarty Jones is too small, too ordinary and, one race away from a Triple Crown, almost too good for words

If there's one thing harder than being from Philadelphia--the Eastern seaboard's perennial underdog--it's being from Baltimore, chronic runner-up even to Philly. But every so often, synergy works. The scrappy cities and a scrappy horse came together last week for a brilliant flash-paper moment in which Smarty Jones, a too-small Thoroughbred from an ordinary farm, roared to an 11.5-length win in the Preakness Stakes, the widest Preakness win ever and one that puts horse racing two-thirds of the way to its first Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978. Coming on the hooves of his win in the Kentucky Derby, Smarty Jones might...

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