The Front Row with MARK NELKE June 3, 2012

Quick - without the benefit of Google, name all the horses in the past decade or so that won the first two legs of the Triple Crown, but came up short in the Belmont Stakes?

I didn't think so.

It has happened seven times in the last 15 years, and 11 times overall since the last horse won the Triple Crown in 1978. Silver Charm (1997), Real Quiet (1998), Charismatic (1999), War Emblem (2002), Funny Cide (2003), Smarty Jones (2004) and Big Brown (2008) all won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness before losing in the Belmont.

Remember any of those names?

I'm not sure whether I want to see I'll Have Another become the first horse in 34 years to win the Triple Crown next week, when he is loaded into the starting gate at the Belmont on Saturday.

MANY OF us remember the great run of Triple Crown winners in the 1970s - Secretariat in 1973, Seattle Slew in 1977 and Affirmed in 1978 - and that no one has done that since.

But that was back in the days before the cable explosion, before there were hundreds of channels on TV, instead of just three or four. People actually planned their weekends around those two minutes on three Saturdays in May and early June. Now, it's easy to forget about the race among the glut of other sporting events on the tube during that time.

Much like the music of the era, memories of those Triple Crown winners of the '70s remain.

Back then we had a dachshund named Casey, who used to chase us down the length of the fenceline as we rode our bikes in the street in front of the house. If you watched closely enough, she looked like Secretariat charging down the homestretch at the Belmont Stakes, en route to a record 31-length victory.

I even rooted for Seattle Slew four years later, even though I was born in Oregon and grew up a Portland Trail Blazers fan.

Of course, we were still basking in the glow of the Blazers winning their first (and still only) NBA title six days earlier, so it was a little easier to root for anything from Seattle, which had yet to win its NBA title by then.

I admit I might have to double-check the Internet for this one, but I remember ’78 as the year Affirmed beat Alydar in all three Triple Crown races by about a combined foot. Those were three of the most stressful races I remember watching. (Upon further review, Affirmed won by 1 1/2 lengths, then by a neck, then by a head).

I EVEN remember Canonero II coming up short in 1971, after winning the Derby and the Preakness. Imagine how the horse felt after the Belmont, when its copy of Sports Illustrated arrived with the cover headline, “Canonero Should Not Have Run,” noting that the horse had “various ailments” and shouldn’t have risked them for the mere glory of being the first Triple Crown winner since Citation in 1948. Canonero finished fourth.

One year, my mom rooted for a horse named Dust Commander because the race was on a Saturday afternoon, and she was cleaning the house at the time.

They say records are made to be broken — but I think it depends on who breaks them.

It was OK for Cal Ripken to break Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played. If someone broke Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak record — it had better not be someone who did very little before or after that accomplishment.

I know people are trying to forget who now holds the single-season and career home run records, but that’s for a different reason.

Maybe people who are just getting exposed to horse racing in recent years remember all the near-misses of the past decade and a half, like we remember many of the Triple Crown races of the ’70s, but I don’t know.

It’s not the horse’s fault, but I just have the fear that, even if he wins, I’ll Have Another will become one of those “Oh, yeah” answers — as in, “Oh, yeah, some horse did win the Triple Crown back in 2012. What was his name again?”

Fortunately — or perhaps unfortunately — there will be a search engine to help answer that question.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.