TRIPLE CROWN RATINGS

Career Horse S 1 2 3 Earnings 1. Spend a Buck 12 8 2 2 $1,397,509 2. Tank’s Prospect 13 5 2 2 $1,355,645 3. Stephan’s Odyssey 9 4 2 1 $839,635 4. Chief’s Crown 14 9 3 1 1,349,422 5. Proud Truth 9 5 2 0 $453,927 6. Fast Account 13 2 6 1 $169,330 7. El Bosco 14 3 2 1 $193,220 8. Eternal Prince 10 4 2 1 $424,362 9. Smile 6 6 0 0 $434,755 10. Rhoman Rule 9 3 1 2 $193,928

REMARKS: Cam Gambolati, Spend a Buck’s trainer, is said to be annoyed that Angel Cordero hasn’t given him a decision whether he’ll ride the speedy 3-year-old colt in next Monday’s Jersey Derby at Garden State Park.

It’s not that the price isn’t right. Cordero stands to earn $260,000-10% of Spend a Buck’s haul--because the $1-million Jersey Derby has a $600,000 winner’s purse, plus a $2-million bonus that Gambolati’s horse would collect after being first in two other Garden State races and the Kentucky Derby.

“My phone’s been ringing off the hook all day today,” Gambolati said Monday from his hotel room in Cherry Hill, N.J., not far from Garden State. “Every jockey in the country wants to ride this horse if Angel doesn’t. Angel’s coming down from New York to work the horse Tuesday morning, and I should know something by noon.”

Cordero had a commitment--with a possible lifetime breeding right attached--to ride Peter Brant’s Track Barron all this year, and that colt is scheduled to run in the Metropolitan Handicap next Monday at Belmont Park, with post time about the same as the Jersey Derby.

Besides Track Barron, Cordero must also consider possible future mounts from the rest of Brant’s well-stocked stable. Last week, though, Brant was telling friends that he felt Cordero would pick Spend a Buck, even though he’s the only quality horse in Gambolati’s barn.

Laffit Pincay and his agent, Tony Matos, have shown interest in riding Spend a Buck, just as they were making overtures for Chief’s Crown prior to the Preakness Stakes. Anthony Rosen and his family, owners of Chief’s Crown, reportedly wanted to drop jockey Don MacBeth after the colt finished third as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby, but trainer Roger Laurin fought for MacBeth and won. Laurin may be in for a fight again when Chief’s Crown runs in the Belmont Stakes, the Triple Crown finale, on June 8, because some observers of the Preakness thought that MacBeth moved too soon with Chief’s Crown, who was run down in the last two strides by Tank’s Prospect and lost by a head.

After the race, Laurin had no criticism of MacBeth’s ride. Asked if he would had done anything differently, MacBeth said: “Maybe I should have been stickin’ like (Pat) Day was (on Tank’s Prospect), but my horse was giving a good effort, and I didn’t think he needed it.”

Asked about the Preakness, Tommy Trotter said from Arlington Park: “Maybe MacBeth moved too soon, maybe he didn’t. What might be more of a factor is that Chief’s Crown may not be a distance horse.”

A new horse in the ratings is a 3-year-old most familiar to racing fans at Calder in Miami. When Smile won the Carry Back Stakes Saturday by 11 1/2 lengths, it was his sixth straight lifetime win, all at Calder.

Smile was sidelined early this year after undergoing arthroscopic surgery for knee chips, the type of operation that Spend a Buck had late last year in only one knee. Smile beat Spend a Buck when they were 2-year-olds and is scheduled to make his first start away from Calder in the Sheridan Stakes at Arlington Park outside Chicago on June 1.

Advisory panel for The Times’ Triple Crown Ratings: Lenny Hale, racing secretary at Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga; Frank (Jimmy) Kilroe, vice-president for racing at Santa Anita; and Tommy Trotter, director of racing at Arlington Park and racing secretary at Gulfstream Park.