AMERICA AT LARGE:What he lacks in education, Calvin Borel makes up for with hard work in the saddle, writes GEORGE KIMBALL

IN 1973 the great Secretariat captured the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes to become US racing’s ninth Triple Crown winner, and the first in 25 years. Back-to-back sweeps of the American Classics by Seattle Slew (1977) and Affirmed (1978) swelled that total to 11, lulling some into the belief that the accomplishment was about to become commonplace.

In the intervening years, nine three-year-olds have won the first two legs, only to be undone by the Belmont’s daunting mile-and-a-half distance – including last year’s failure by Big Brown, who after wins in Louisville and Baltimore went off the odds-on favourite in New York, only to be pulled up and finish dead last.

The 31-year drought seemed destined to continue when this year’s Derby and Preakness produced different winners. Traditionally this development results in a significant drop-off in interest for the third leg, but that will not be the case two weeks from Saturday at Belmont Park. Neither Mine That Bird nor Rachel Alexandra has a chance to win the Triple Crown this year, but Calvin Borel does – and at this point he doesn’t even know what horse he will be riding.

Sometimes described as America’s hardest-working rider, the 40-year-old Louisianan has been winning races for the past quarter-century, but until two years ago most Americans had never heard his name. His masterful performance in rallying Street Sense from a next-to-last position to win the 2007 Kentucky Derby abruptly made him the focal point of nationwide attention, most of which he probably could have done without.

In interviews, Borel, who resembles a 115lb version of Tom Hanks, came across as Forrest Gump’s mentally-challenged younger brother with a Cajun accent: he had been riding horses since he was four years of age, been riding competitively since he was eight, and had been a professional jockey since he was 15, mainly at backwater venues around the South.

He had dropped out of school in the eighth grade and was described as functionally illiterate, which may have been unfair. (He can read a racing form. And he knows how to endorse a check.) “We might have lacked a lot of education,” trainer Cecil Borel, the jockey’s older brother, offered in his defence, “but we didn’t lack no work.”

Calvin’s fianceé, Lisa Funk, added that she was helping him improve his reading skills.

Queen Elizabeth II was a guest at Churchill Downs that day, and when it was pointed out to him that he had just won the Derby before “the Queen”, it was clear from the baffled look on Borel’s face that he was thinking “My God! You mean Kitty Wells is here?”

That night Calvin and Lisa had dinner with the Queen of England. (Presumably to ensure that Borel had somebody with whom he could converse, George W Bush also attended.) Two weeks later Borel and Street Sense finished second to Curlin in the Preakness, and Calvin’s 15 minutes of national fame had expired.

Then on the first Saturday in May of this year came Borel’s astonishing ride in guiding Mine That Bird, a 50 to 1 longshot, from dead last with half a mile to run to a six-length triumph. So far back – at one point, 30 lengths – that track announcer Tom Durkin overlooked him completely in his backstretch call, Borel made a furious run over the last half mile, and in a daring stretch move, he drove Mine That Bird through an opening you wouldn’t ask a rat to squeeze through.

With literally inches separating him from horses on his right and the fence on his left, Borel shot through the gap, chased down the leaders, and won going away in the 135th Run for the Roses.

This time the winner’s unlikely provenance ensured that Calvin would share the spotlight. Mine That Bird had been purchased as a yearling for $9,500, and his spit-kicker connections seemed as out of place in the company of Winstar Farms, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, and Mrs Magnier as had Borel at the dinner table with the Queen.

Cowboy hat-wearing refugees from the southwestern quarter-horse circuit, trainer Chip Woolley and owner Mark Allen had met 25 years earlier when the former came to the aid of the latter in a New Mexico saloon brawl. In a race whose competitors are often transported to Louisville by 747, Mine That Bird came in a horse van towed by Woolley’s pick-up truck, with the trainer behind the wheel for the 21-hour non-stop drive from New Mexico despite a leg encased in a plaster cast, a souvenir of a motorcycle crash a few weeks earlier.

A day before the Derby, Borel had ridden favoured Rachel Alexandra to a 20-length win in the Kentucky Oaks, and pronounced the three-year-old filly “the best horse I’ve ever ridden”. Since her owners had already committed to entering Rachel in the second leg of the filly Classics, the Black-Eyed Susan, Woolley and Allen did not seem particularly disturbed by this observation.

But just three days after the Derby, Jess Jackson and Harold McCormack bought Rachel Alexandra. The purchase price was reported to have been between $3 and $4 million. The new owners had acquired her for breeding purposes, but said they “might” consider paying the $100,000 supplementary fee to enter her in the Preakness, reasoning that the Derby result had confirmed the mediocrity of this year’s crop of three-year-old colts.

The same thing had apparently happened the other Preakness owners. Several of them, including Allen, considered entering Triple Crown-nominated horses they hadn’t planned to run, just to keep the filly out of the Preakness, but in the face of widespread criticism opted to forego such treachery. When Rachel Alexandra was officially supplemented, Borel elected to ride her, thus becoming the first jockey in Triple Crown history to voluntarily relinquish a mount on a Kentucky Derby winner for the second leg.

Bet down to a 2 to 1 favourite, Rachel Alexandra confirmed Borel’s prescience last Saturday when she became the first filly in 85 years to win the Preakness, but she had to fight off a late charge from Mike Smith, who had taken over the mount on Mine That Bird, to do it.

Mine That Bird could have his third jockey in as many races for the Belmont. Smith, the regular rider for California trainer John Shirreffs, informed Woolley Monday that he will honour a long-standing commitment to ride for Shirreffs in a June 6th stakes race at Hollywood Park.

At this point it is still unclear whether Rachel Alexandra will run in the Belmont. If she does, Borel has a chance to make history. And if she doesn’t, he may still have a chance to make history if he gets back on Mine That Bird and wins.

“We’ll see,” said Woolley when asked if he would go back to Borel in that eventuality.

Put it this way: he’s a fool if he doesn’t.