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There have been many truly exciting finishes in the 2009 racing season. Remember Rachel Alexandra stubbornly holding off the older boys in the Woodward, and the biggest stage of all in 2009 was the great Zenyatta using her familiar late kick to sweep past the field of high-class boys in the Breeders' Cup Classic. Yes, that finish was thrilling, but it was also not really that close. She won the race by a clear length and, by doing so, injected herself into the only remaining battle left, the one for 2009 Horse of the Year. Now imagine a race that had just as much riding on it, but was on a surface your horse didn't like and your horse was nursing a sore ankle to boot.
That was precisely the situation heading into the 1976 Marlboro Cup for the great gelding Forego. After SECRETARIAT retired following his amazing 1973 Triple Crown season, Forego emerged as a totally dominating horse in the middle of a decade that featured some of the greatest horses and races in the history of the sport. In 1974, won Horse of the Year, but also Champion Older Male and Champion Sprint Horse. He won the top honor again in 1975 and again won Champion Older Male, and his 6-year-old campaign in 1976 was also impressive.

However, his winning Horse of the Year was very much in doubt because of the exploits of Honest Pleasure, a fine 3-year-old colt, and because the surface at Belmont Park that gloomy day was muddy, and Forego was notoriously terrible in the mud historically. In addition, his ankles, which were never completely sound, were very sore. There were rumors flying around Belmont that trainer Frank Whitely would scratch the fan favorite.
There was no Breeders' Cup back in 1976; the biggest race of the year at the end of a season at that time would usually turn out to be The Jockey Club Gold Cup, the Woodward, or the Marlboro Cup, depending on the circumstances. Whitely and the rest of the racing world that for the aging 6-year-old gelding to win his third straight Horse of the Year Award, he would have to win the Marlboro Cup despite the factors arrayed against him.
Forego, like Zenyatta, was closer through and through, and down the backstretch of the 10 furlong race, it looked as if Forego, who had also been slapped with a ridiculous impost of 137 pounds, wasn't even going to be a factor in the outcome. But somehow, he got himself moving and provided fans everywhere with not only the greatest racing moment of 1976, but also one of the greatest racing moment in the history of the sport!