In 1982, the late-charging Gato Del Sol roared up from dead last to a surprise win in the Kentucky Derby. Two weeks later, Aloma’s Ruler upset the Preakness, leaving the upcoming Belmont Stakes a tough proposition for bettors, most of whom decided the 1 1/2 mile distance of the Third Jewel of the Triple Crown favored the Derby winner. Meanwhile, crusty New York trainer Woody Stephens had matters of his own to attend to with a late-developing son of the super sire Mr. Prospector named Conquistador Cielo (Conqueror of the Skies), owned by the prominent Henryk de Kwiatkowski, a Polish-born member of England’s Royal Air Force in World War II who later became an aeronautical engineer and a wealthy airplane broker.
Conquistador Cielo had won six straight races and when he massacred a small field in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga, New York Times racing writer Stephen Crist wrote this: “In the biggest surprise since the sun rose in the East this morning, Conquistador Cielo toyed with three outclassed rivals to win the Jim Dandy.” Many observers expected Stephens to go straight from the 1 1/8-mile Saratoga race to the Belmont, but Woody Stephens had the odd notion to run the horse in the shorter Metropolitan Mile against older horses five days prior to the Belmont and only twelve days after the Jim Dandy. Knowledgeable horse afficionados laughed at the folly—bringing a young colt back against his seniors a mere twelve days after a stakes race when the up-for-grabs Belmont versus three-year-olds looked like low-hanging fruit. Nobody was complaining after the race, however, which Conquistador Cielo won by 7 1/4 lengths in track record time of 1:33 flat. “But you could have won the Belmont!” the racing writers insisted. “I still can,” said Woody.
Five days later, Henryk de Kwiatkowski’s champion ran off with the revered Belmont Stakes by 14 lengths, demolishing the Kentucky Derby winner and the Preakness victor in a laugher and making Woody Stephens look like a genius. His competitors and the racing press weren’t so sure. The prevailing opinion was that Conquistador Cielo was one in a million and Woody Stephens just got lucky.
From The Outhouse To The Penthouse
Woody Stephens was born in tiny Stanton, Kentucky on September 1, 1913, one of seven children of a sharecropper. He started out with little education and no money, small of stature but always feisty. He won his first race as a jockey at Hialeah Park in 1931 and saddled his initial winner as a trainer at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington in 1936. Woody was a folksy, down-home fellow with a bit of a chip on his shoulder, the little guy always out to prove his mettle. Tell him he couldn’t do something and next day he was knocking at your door with photographic evidence you were wrong. Eventually, he worked his way up to training at Belmont Park in 1943. As far as racing was concerned, Woody had arrived at the top step. Let’s see how long he could stay there.
Forty years later, Stephens had proved his point. In 1983, he was saddling Caveat, in search of his second Belmont Stakes in a row. Surveying the field, he rankled a few owners when he told reporters “there are no Conquistador Cielos in this bunch,” including his own horse in the process. Then Caveat went out and sat well back for much of the race, his usual demeanor, eventually bulling his way through traffic on the rail to beat favorite Slew o’ Gold by a widening 3 1/2 lengths. Woody and jockey Laffit Pincay had their second Belmont winner in a row but the trainer was not exactly over the moon. “He’s about as fit as he can be right now and he’s not going to get much better,” Woody told us, unceremoniously. He was right, of course.
Swale
Woody won the 1984 Kentucky Derby with one of his favorite horses, Swale, a smashing looking son of Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, subsequently a big favorite in the Preakness Stakes. Perfectly placed near the lead until the top of the stretch, Swale wilted and steadily faded. His rider, Laffit Pincay, Jr., said he “ran out of horse.” Woody made no excuses. The winner of the race was the erratic but powerful Gate Dancer who two weeks earlier had earned the distinction of being the only horse ever disqualified in the Kentucky Derby, repeatedly bumping Fali Time and being demoted from fourth to fifth.
The two ran again in the Belmont and this time it was Woody’s horse turning the tables on Gate Dancer by four lengths in the fourth-fastest time in the race’s history, the banty trainer’s third win in a row in the Test of a Champion. It’s hard enough to win any classic, but three in a row? Almost impossible. Eight days later, the horse was dead. After his usual morning gallop, Swale went back to the barn, was hosed down and cooled off. Inexplicably, he suddenly reared up and fell over dead, an autopsy at New Bolton Center confirming it was a heart failure. Woody Stephens, who seldom expressed vulnerability, was devastated. “Swale was the best of them all,” he often said. “And he never needed medication of any kind. He never even took an aspirin.”
Going For Four
If winning three Belmonts in a row was virtually impossible, winning four was ridiculous. In 1985, however, Woody had the tough Stephan’s Odyssey, also owned by Henryk Kwiatkowski, ready to take on two-year-old champion Chief’s Crown. He was convinced the latter could not handle the Belmont distance and saw no other serious challengers. Stephens had another colt, Creme Fraiche, owned by Elizabeth Moran, ready to go in the Ohio Derby, but when rain was forecast for the Belmont, he decided to run the mud-loving colt there instead.
Said Stephens: “I was sitting with Henryk and my wife was sitting with Elizabeth. When I told Henryk he was in front, he jumped out of his seat and started hugging me and taking his bows. I’m watching the finish and I think ‘oh-oh.’ I tapped Henryk on the shoulder and told him ‘You better go hug Mrs. Moran. She got you.’”
Danzig Connection
In 1985, Danzig Connection, one of Woody’s two-year-olds, had a chip removed from his knee. Looking at the likelihood the colt would not be back in time for the first two Triple Crown races, Stephens nominated him anyway, hopeful of a shot at a fith consecutive Belmont. At three, Danzig Connection lost two straight and Woody replaced rider Jerry Bailey with Pat Day, with orders not to use the whip on the horse under any conditions. Day rode Danzig Connection to victory in the Peter Pan but had a prior commitment for the Belmont. Chris McCarron took the mount but the opposition seemed formidable, trainer Charlie Whittingham’s Derby and Preakness winning Ferdinand among the contenders. Woody’s horse took over from the speedy Mogambo on the far turn and held off Ferdinand at the finish. It was incredible. Woody Stephens had won his fifth consecutive Belmont Stakes.
After the race, assistant trainer David Donk reminisced: “Right after Creme Fraiche won, Woody told us ‘The next one is over in one of them barns. Go find him.’ One day a two-year-old got loose from one of the handlers and started off down the road to Mack Miller’s barn. Woody was standing by his office and looked up and said ‘That’s my Danzig-Gdynia colt.’ I mean, who would know that on sight from several barns away? Anyway, that colt turned out to be Danzig Connection.”
Five Belmonts. In a row. In the annals of Sport, we have many sanctified records. No one, of course, could ever run a mile in under four minutes. Until Roger Bannister did it in 3:59.4. It was silly to think anyone would ever break Babe’s Ruth’s home run record of 60 in a season, set in 1927. Then, Roger Maris hit 61 in 1961. And no one thinks that Joe DiMaggio’s consecutive game hitting streak of 56 will ever be equalled. So far, they’re right. And so how will it go with this one, this far-fetched winning streak of Belmonts, this horse-racing impossibility? If you’ll pardon a prognostication, a lot closer to Joe DiMaggio than Babe Ruth, methinks.
Celebrated trainer D. Wayne Lukas used to spar with Woody about their accomplishments over lunch, the former one day elaborating on all his Triple Crown winners to get Woody’s goat. “He’d just smile and tell me he’d won those five Belmonts. I’d say, ‘Woody, I’ve got four of those right now, how do you know i won’t win a couple more?’ And he’d stand up, get ready to go and look back over his shoulder. ‘You won’t win five in a row’, he’d say. Not much of an answer you can give a man about that.”
Woody Stephens died on August 22, 1998 at a health care center in Miami Lakes, Florida from complications of chronic emphysema. He told friends he was ready to go and not a bit shy about passing on to “the next chapter.” He mentioned to one of them he was expecting to run into Swale there. Maybe he did. If winning five Belmonts in a row is not impossible, maybe nothing is.
Handicapping The Belmont
If there’s one thing The Flying Pie has consistently emphasized about horse racing, it is that there’s no sure thing (see Nyquist, this year’s Preakness). If there are 40 ways to leave your lover, there must be 140 ways to leave your money at the race track. Favorites lose two-thirds of the time. Sometimes they wake up on race morning cranky and out of sorts, sometimes they stumble out of the gate, sometimes they get caught up in traffic. Jockeys, few Rhodes Scholars among them, make tactical errors, go too fast or too slow early, take their mounts too wide, misjudge the competition, drop their whips. Trainers give their riders poor instructions, miscalculate the readiness of their horses, incorrectly assess their competition. So if you’re wondering whether Exaggerator is a sure thing in the 148th Belmont Stakes this Saturday….of course not.
For one thing, half of the Belmont winners since the turn of the century—8 of 16—ran on Kentucky Derby weekend at Churchill Downs, then had five weeks off before the Belmont. While the Preakness winner appears to be a horse capable of withstanding the gruelling Triple Crown schedule, many of the trainers of those 8 Belmont winners feel the rest between the Derby and the Belmont played a large part in their victories. New York conditioner Nick Zito, who sent Birdstone out to win in 2004, stressed the mental benefits of the five weeks off. “It definitely made a difference, I know it did,” said Zito this week. “The Triple Crown is such a strenuous thing.”
“It’s a logical move for us if you’re not set on the Preakness’” Destin’s trainer Todd Pletcher agreed. Pletcher sent out Rags To Riches and Palace Malice to win a couple of Belmonts and has Destin on the same schedule. “We get to spend five weeks at home preparing for the race. It makes sense.”
Two important factors in Exaggerator’s victory in the Preakness were the condition of the track—muddy—and the pace—very fast. There is no guarantee of rain in New York Saturday and the pace will be slower. Looking to insure a decent pace for its interests in the race, Winstar Farm has inserted Gettysburg to play the rabbit’s role, but it takes two to tango. No serious contender will challenge an obvious rabbit—a speed horse with no chance of carrying it the 1 1/2-mile distance. The Preakness winner could have two of his Baltimore advantages negated in addition to facing well-rested challengers.
The Pretenders
Gettysburg is in the race purely to help Winstar-owned Creator and also Exaggerator, in whom they have breeding rights. By the end, you won’t find him with a telescope.
Trojan Nation is obviously owned by Southern California masochists who have money to burn. Still a maiden. No way, no how, no purse. Dumbhead entry.
Forever d’Oro might be a nice horse someday. Unlike Trojan Nation, he has actually beaten maidens. But whoever said the Belmont resembles a non-winners-of-two? Pass.
Seeking The Soul is making his first start around two turns. In a Triple Crown race. At a mile-and-a-half. They should have named him Seeking The Miracle. The Second Coming of Elvis is more likely than this horse winning.
Brody’s Cause ran in the Kentucky Derby, where he was knocked around like a pinball. By Giant’s Causeway and trained by Dale Romans, this horse may have a future—but none of it is in the winner’s circle on Belmont day.
The Contenders
Lani, sometimes called “the crazy horse” by my self-appointed copy editor, Barbara—as in “The crazy horse is in the gate next to Exaggerator”—will be the only horse other than the favorite to run in all three TC races, so give him credit for that, especially considering his long trip from the United Arab Emirates. Lani is a grouch. He doesn’t like to go in the starting gate and sometimes he isn’t especially keen to come out of it. When he does, he gallops around at one speed until the race is over, then he refuses to sign autographs or have his picture taken. He won’t have to worry about that part of it but he could be on the board.
Governor Malibu barely made it past the Pretenders section, especially when we discovered he was partly owned by somebody called the Jump Sucker Stable. What kind of respectable monicker is that? We elevated him due to his second-place finish in the Peter Pan and his other connections—trainer Christophe Clement and rider Joel Rosario. Won’t win but could get a piece on his best.
Cherry Wine finished second in the Preakness, edging a very tired Nyquist by a smidge, thus earning serious consideration here. But not by me. Saved ground along the rail in Baltimore, another one aided by the fast pace and track conditions. Getting better, though, and could easily be on the board.
Creator, the Winstar hope, trained by Steve Asmussen, who knows what he’s doing. Clobbered in the Kentucky Derby, losing all chance. By classics sire Tapit, which gives him the distance goods. Watch out for this one.
Destin has the sire (Giant’s Causeway), the trainer (Pletcher) and the jock (Javier Castellano) and he’s racing on his home track. Didn’t change leads in Louisville and has only one start in 13 weeks. Curious schedule.
Suddenbreakingnews is improving fast. Ran well in the Derby after early trouble and closes like a banshee. Mike Smith is one of the shrewder jockeys extant. Can’t dismiss.
Stradivari, not a bad Preakness despite the slop. By Medaglia d’ Oro, trained by Pletcher, ridden by John Velazquez. Will benefit from having Gettysburg to set the pace. Big shot here.
Exaggerator is in a tougher situation than last time. Slower pace. Fast track predicted. Third race in five weeks. And a jockey just coming out of a short stint in alcohol rehab, of all things. He’s probably wondering what else can happen. Nonetheless, if any horse can handle a little adversity, it’s this one. Far and away, the horse to beat.
The Envelope, Please
1. Exaggerator. The best horse in here, would corral this bunch nine times out of ten. Some concern for the greater demands placed on him but he’s training well and has great determination. If Kent Desormeaux shows up sober, he wins the prize.
2. Stradivari. Toughest pick of the day, could be interchanged with the picks for third and fourth. Not quite ready for the Preakness, should show his best on home track in third start off the layoff.
3. Creator. Current odds of 10-1 make this one tempting despite poor Derby finish. Annihilated in Louisville, losing all chance. A win would be asking a lot, anything else is a fair bet. Very tough on his best.
4. Suddenbreakingnews. Good enough to win with a nice start. Should be closing like gangbusters—passed 14 horses in the last half-mile of the Derby. Rider change to Mike Smith can’t hurt.
So there you have it . Another classics season is about over and it’s almost time for wedding bells in the tiny chapel in Las Vegas. We’re leaving for the Big Adventure on June 23rd so there are two Pies remaining before a repost of our Glacier Park adventures while we’re gone. The next two weeks we’ll post the streaming information so all six of you who are interested can watch live at 4 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on June 25th. Be there or forever hold your peace.
That’s all, folks….
