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If you look up the word “class” in the dictionary, you just may find a picture of John Veitch. The retired Hall of Fame trainer, now a racing official in Kentucky, set the bar extremely high for handling defeats, even the most difficult ones imaginable, with unerring dignity and grace.

As the Triple Crown plays out in the next couple of months, we will be reminded many times of the last Triple Crown winner, Affirmed, when the winner of this year’s Kentucky Derby attempts to add the Preakness and Belmont Stakes to become the first Triple Crown Champion since 1978.

It’s hard to even mention Affirmed’s name without including his nemesis, Alydar. Together, they staged the greatest rivalry in modern racing history, tackling each other 10 times over the course of their two and three-year-old seasons.

Affirmed, owned by Patrice and Louis Wolfson’s Harbor View Farm, was trained by late Hall of Famer Laz Barrera, a brilliant conditioner. Veitch, who followed his father, Syl, also a Hall of Fame trainer, into racing, trained Alydar for Admiral Gene and Mrs. Markey, the owners of famed Calumet Farm.

As two-year-olds, Affirmed and Alydar hooked up six times, with Affirmed winning four of them, a resume good enough to earn championship honors in 1977 as the top two-year-old colt.

Then each took separate routes to get to the 1978 Kentucky Derby far from each other. Barrera stabled Affirmed in California while Veitch brought Alydar back to the races in Florida. In the intervening months between their final two-year-old meeting and their confrontation in the Kentucky Derby, every race fan in America had a passionate opinion on the rivalry. If you loved Thoroughbreds, you either were in Affirmed’s corner or Alydar’s.

Each horse didn’t miss a beat early in their three-year-old careers. Alydar swept an allowance race, the Flamingo and the Florida Derby before heading to Keeneland, where he won the Blue Grass Stakes by 13 lengths, a dazzling display which had Alydar fans confident that he would dominate Affirmed in the Kentucky Derby.

Affirmed, meanwhile, was a perfect three-for-three in California, taking the San Felipe, the Santa Anita Derby and the Hollywood Derby. His backers were convinced that the Kentucky Derby would convince one and all that Affirmed was better than Alydar.

The records the two colts brought to the Kentucky Derby were incredible. Alydar, who had finished fifth in a stakes race to a more experienced Affirmed in his debut, had 10 wins and four seconds in his last 14 starts. Affirmed had a career record of 11 wins and two seconds to Alydar in 13 starts.

It can’t get any better than that.

In the Derby, Affirmed was magnificent, holding off Alydar by a length and a half. The Preakness was much tighter as Alydar flew up to engage Affirmed on the final turn as if he’d blow by him, but Affirmed dug in and held him off by a neck.

Their meeting in the 1978 Belmont Stakes produced one of the greatest races in history with Affirmed on the inside under Steve Cauthen, and Alydar alongside under Jorge Velazquez, slugging it out head-to-head, shoulder to shoulder and eye-to-eye the entire length of the Belmont Stakes. In mid-stretch, Alydar stuck his nose in front, but Affirmed immediately conquered. He regained the lead and held it to the wire, winning the mile-and-a-half marathon by a desperate head. “I thought I had him beat at the eighth pole,” Veitch said.

Veitch handled Alydar’s loss in the Belmont Stakes the same way he handled losing the first two legs of the Triple Crown: with pure class, offering no excuses or alibis and saluting what Affirmed had done at the expense of his horse, whose only weakness was having been born in the same year as Affirmed.

Veitch’s conduct during the Triple Crown did not escape the Wolfsons, who wrote a touching letter to the Markeys, acknowledging that Alydar was a great horse, too, and telling them how much the sport had gained by the rivalry and by the utmost class Veitch had shown the entire way.

Affirmed and Alydar would meet once more in the 1978 Travers Stakes at Saratoga, but their 10th battle turned into a bitter disappointment for just about everyone. Affirmed defeated Alydar by a length and three-quarters, but in doing so had blatantly fouled Alydar on the backstretch. Hall of Fame jockey Laffit Pincay, Jr., who had replaced the injured Cauthen on Affirmed, shut off Alydar, who was making a move on his inside, by cutting him off. Alydar nearly went down. Only brilliant horsemanship by Velasquez, who immediately snatched Alydar back, prevented a tragedy. How Alydar recomposed himself and re-rallied to finish second was a testament to his courage. The stewards had no choice but to disqualify Affirmed and place him second, making Alydar the winner.

Rather than celebrate that decision, Veitch was disappointed. He remains so to this very day. This was not the way he wanted to win. “I wanted Alydar to vindicate himself,” Veitch said many years later. “It was just kind of taken away.”

Veitch’s class, however, has remained.