the Kentucky Derby, run May 7, 2005. In the race, he finished third by less than a length to Giacomo, who was a 50–1 longshot. Rose later said that he had not given the horse the best ride of his life. Two weeks later, Afleet Alex won the second leg of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, leaving Giacomo third. In his Preakness victory, Scrappy T, who was in the lead, swung out at the top of the stretch as a result of an aggressive smack of his jockey Ramon Dominguez's whip. The horse veered into Afleet Alex's path just as he was making his move, and they clipped heels. Afleet Alex stumbled so badly that Jeremy Rose was thrown far over his neck. The horse nearly went to his knees, and his nose came within an inch of the dirt. However, he recovered and regained his momentum, drawing away from Scrappy T for a 4 length victory. "I think my heart stopped," Rose said. "I have no idea how I stayed on. I was basically hanging on in fear." He finished the mile and three-sixteenth distance of the Preakness in 1:55, the fastest Preakness of the past eight years, turning in one of the fastest final three-sixteenths in Preakness history. On June 11, Afleet Alex rated behind the pace for a mile, then "exploded" past Giacomo and the rest of the field in the final turn at Belmont Park to win the Belmont Stakes by seven lengths. He ran the fastest final quarter (:24) in that race since Arts and Letters in 1969. He became the 18th horse to lose the Derby but win the Preakness and Belmont. "We expected this kind of performance," Ritchey said. "I wasn't surprised he was that far back, but when he got rolling, it was a lot of fun." Rose said, "I knew that if I didn't do something stupid, I was going to win this race. He's just that good." When The Blood-Horse checked back over 40 years, there was no record found of any horse other than Alex having won the Belmont Stakes and a six-furlong stakes (the Mountain Valley) in the same year. The colt's fall campaign was derailed when he was found in late July 2005 to have a hairline fracture in his left front cannon bone, near the ankle. The fracture was discovered