A curse?

I don't know anything about horse racing, except that the last Triple Crown winner was in 1978 and pretty much every year for the last decade or so, one horse has won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but failed to win the Belmont. I mean, there have been some famous "near misses"* recently, including the beloved Barbaro, Afleet Alex (missing by 8ft), Smarty Jones, and now Big Brown. I really thought Big Brown would get it this year, if only because of the numbers. It's been exactly 30 years since the last Triple Crown winner. That's all the numbers I have but it seemed like it might work out. To no avail. Sorry Big Brown - worst finish by a horse that won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness...last place.

But in all this time, I've never heard anybody mention anything about a curse. So I'm going to take this opportunity to say that the Belmont is cursed. And I'm going to attribute it to this story**:

After Affirmed won in 1978, his owners over at Harbor View Farms wanted to be in the Guinness Book of World Records as the last horse owners to ever win the Triple Crown. They decided to take a trip to Romania and consult a blind gypsy. The blind gypsy told them that she could help them. It would be more dramatic if several horses won the first two legs and then always lost the last one (and also more lucrative for betting purposes). She could put a curse on the Belmont Stakes in exchange for their first born child. The owners agreed. And now there is a curse on the Belmont Stakes.

This story is stupid and I'm tempted to delete it, but I'm lazy and it is so lame I find it funny. I should never be a fiction writer.

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*The phrase "near misses" really bothers me. What does it mean exactly? I mean, if you nearly miss something, doesn't that mean you hit it?

**This story is entirely fictional, although the names have not been changed to protect the innocent.