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By JAMES JORDAN
The Traveler

Do you know why Smarty Jones didn't wind the Belmont last weekend? He was bored to death, that's why.

Lulled to sleep by endless and pointless previews from the talking heads on television leading up to the big race.

By the time the race started, the horse, along with millions of racing fans, was bleary eyed and numb from the endless television hype.

If not that, it was the "expectation jinx." This is similar to the Sports Illustrated jinx - if you get on the cover you will lose - but this particular curse involves the talking heads on T.V. predicting the win over and over and over.

Once that happens you're toast.

You can't blame the horse. He was made for racing. His job is to race. He would have won had we gotten to the race, instead of listening to endless television previews.

The Triple Crown is about all the horse racing I follow, and since the small horse had won the first two, I was intent on watching the Belmont. It was a chance to watch history happen. No horse has won all three big races in 26 years.

Smarty Jones' strong win at the Kentucky Derby, and his awesome performance at the Preakness, did make the possibility of a Triple Crown winner seem realistic. But the Belmont is known as the heartbreaker.

Nine horses have been in this situation during the 26-year drought of Triple Crown winners, and now we enter the 27th year, hoping another great horse can rise to the occasion.

Last Saturday I saw that the TV listings said the race would be on at 5 p.m. Now I should have known better, since ESPN.Com said 5:30 and Sportingnews.com said 4:30, but still I turned on the TV at 5 and got ready to watch the Belmont.

The talking heads kept talking about history in the making, and about how everyone was in love with Smarty Jones. Sounded good to me, and I hoped to see the race after a few minutes of previews.

A real preview would have been nice. It would have been good to hear about the other horses in the race But to hear the talking heads, you were led to believe it was only Smarty Jones and some broken down nags on their last stop before the glue factory.

They did mention one horse that they thought might have a chance, but in general, the broadcasters presented Smarty Jones as a can't lose proposition. They gave eventual winner Birdstone only a passing mention.

They also failed to mention that he had done very well on this track, and had won a lot of races there. This fact should have given us all reason for pause, but not the talking heads.

That was bad enough, but then they went from there to the ridiculous. They didn't stick a micropone in front of the horse's mouth, but you can bet they would have if they could have.

They interviewed just about everyone involved, and of course tried their hardest to get them to predict a Smarty Jones victory. To the talking heads, the race was in the bag and only heretics didn't see the writing on the wall.

They even went so far as to tell us what Smarty Jones ate for dinner the night before, and what he did before he went to bed for the night, and of course what he ate for breakfast. They also talked about what the horse must be thinking. Maybe that should have contacted the Pet Psychic who has that show on the Animal Plant network.

They told us everything, except what we needed to know. Simple things like who the other horses were.

After half an hour, I had all I could take and left the television. I checked back about every 10 minutes to see if the race had finally started.

Once it finally did start, the race itself was great. Jones took a slight lead in the last curve. It was a bit early for him to be leading, but still, as he went out of the curve and into the home stretch, there seemed to be a little distance developing between him and the next horse, just like the Preakness.

Only this time he was caught from behind by a horse who loved that track, and who had always done very well on that track. Of course, thanks to the talking heads, we were not privy to that information.

For those who were able to stay awake through the talking heads, the race itself was one of the great moments of sports. Smarty Jones being caught at the end was also one of the classic heartbreaking moments of sport.

The viewing public - after being subjected to endless pre-race programming - left stunned and perhaps disappointed. The great horse had not won.

So popular was Smarty Jones that even the winning jockey, trainer and owner apologized. The talking heads should apologize too.