Chief’s Crown Gets a Break in Travers--He Isn’t Favored

Chief’s Crown has already made history, but it has been the negative kind. The 3-year-old colt has been a lot like William Jennings Bryan and Thomas Dewey, who are best remembered for the Presidential races they didn’t win. But Chief’s Crown keeps running, and today may finally be his day.

Chief’s Crown, one of seven horses entered in the 116th running of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, won’t be favored for a change, and that may be the best news of the year for Roger Laurin, the trainer, and Andrew Rosen, the blue jeans executive who heads the syndicate that owns the horse.

Laurin, Rosen and partners watched painfully as Chief’s Crown, favored in all three races, finished third in the Kentucky Derby, second in the Preakness and third in the Belmont Stakes. Only two other horses, Correlation in 1954 and My Dad George in 1970, were favored in all of the Triple Crown races and failed to win any.

Laurin thinks that the 3-year-old championship has yet to be decided, but the winner of the 116th Travers will not gain a tremendous amount of ground because the winners of the Triple Crown races are not in the field. Kentucky Derby winner Spend a Buck, a bleeder who can’t run on medication here because of New York’s hay-oats-and-water-only rules, is appearing instead in today’s Monmouth Handicap in New Jersey; Preakness winner Tank’s Prospect was injured in the Belmont and has been retired, and Belmont winner Creme Fraiche, who’s a gelding, remains in the barn as trainer Woody Stephens starts Stephan’s Odyssey, a stud prospect whose breeding value would skyrocket with a Travers win.

Stephan’s Odyssey, who has had runner-up problems of his own this year, finishing second in both the Derby and the Belmont, probably will be a slight favorite over Chief’s Crown. Being the Travers favorite has come with a hex in the last nine years--the only favorite to win during that stretch was Jatski in 1977, and he needed a stewards’ disqualification after Run Dusty Run was the first horse across the wire.

Since finishing second by a half-length to stablemate Creme Fraiche in the Belmont, Stephan’s Odyssey has won two straight--the Dwyer Stakes at Belmont Park on July 7 and the Jim Dandy at Saratoga two weeks ago. The Jim Dandy has served as a successful steppingstone for two of the last four Travers winners--Carr de Naskra last year and Willow Hour in 1981.

Today’s field in the 1-mile dirt race, in post-position order, consists of Uptown Swell, with no jockey listed at entry time; Turkoman, Darrel McHargue riding; Chief’s Crown, Angel Cordero; Don’s Choice, Don MacBeth; Stephan’s Odyssey, Pat Day; Broadway Tommy, Jose Santos, and Skip Trial, Jean-Luc Samyn.

A win by any colt but Stephan’s Odyssey or Chief’s Crown would be a major upset. Turkoman, second to Padua in Hollywood Park’s Swaps Stakes in his last start, is an undisciplined, trouble-finding son of Alydar whose only win this year has been in allowance company. Skip Trial, at 35-1, upset Spend a Buck in the Haskell Handicap at Monmouth Park on July 27, but it was the Derby winner’s first race in two months, and his tiring in the stretch might be attributed to the layoff.

Before the Haskell, Skip Trial was more known for the company he kept--an outgoing, wisecracking owner-trainer group from Baltimore--than for any of his on-track accomplishments.

Skip Trial had never started in a stakes race when his owners, Zelda and Ben Cohen, entered him in the Preakness, mainly because the Cohen family owns Pimlico. Skip Trial ran ninth, beating only two horses. Running against the 3-year-old division’s soft touches, Skip Trial did win the Ohio Derby at Thistledown six weeks before his shocker in the Haskell.

Jolly Sonny Hine, a former undercover agent for the U.S. State Department in China and Hong Kong, reminded Monmouth after the Haskell that the track had refused Skip Trial a spot in its stakes barn. Both Hine and Ben Cohen reportedly bet Skip Trial heavily in the Haskell, and Hine may have collected more at the windows than he did from his $18,000 purse commission--he was seen counting $100 bills for a long time at Monmouth. The Cohens didn’t even travel to New Jersey for the Haskell but were able to bet the race at Pimlico, their own track.

The 85-year-old Cohen is a tall, cigar-chewing character who could pass for 60. His toughness in bargaining with Pimlico’s labor unions is legendary. When an officer for the parimutuel clerks once tried to explain how tough it is to sell and cash tickets, Cohen cut him off by saying: “Don’t tell me. It’s just as tough on my side of the windows.”

Cohen likes to introduce Hine as “the trainer who made me a millionaire. Of course, I had $10 million when I started with Sonny.”

Chief’s Crown is also a millionaire, though most of his $1.4-million purse total was acquired last year when he won the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Stakes at Hollywood Park to clinch the 2-year-old title.

“He ran hard in all three of the Triple Crown races, so I can’t complain from that standpoint,” Laurin said. “He’s never disappointed me that way--he’s always run hard.”

Chief’s Crown has been first in all three of his starts here, winning the Saratoga Special and the Hopeful Stakes as a 2-year-old, then being disqualified to fourth for interference after apparently winning the Tell Stakes two weeks ago.

The Tell was Chief’s Crown’s first start on grass. “Like most good horses, he switched over without any problem,” Laurin said. “Although I don’t know if he’ll run on turf again, that does give us an added dimension with the horse.”

Laurin declined to speculate on whom the current divisional leader might be.

“I don’t like to handicap other people’s horses,” the trainer said. “It just looks like it’s wide open at this stage. I would like another shot at Spend a Buck later in the year, though.”

That shot may never come if Chief’s Crown continues to race in New York, a jurisdiction where the no-medication rule makes it too dicey for Spend a Buck to run. With this year’s Breeders’ Cup at Aqueduct, on Nov. 2, horses won’t be able to run with medication; they were able to get help in the races last year at Hollywood Park. The Breeders’ Cup and all of racing sorely need standard medication rules, but meantime, Chief’s Crown will just try to crank out that elusive next victory. As long as the public doesn’t favor him, he’s got a chance.

Horse Racing Notes

Besides the $250,000 Travers, there are six stakes races on today’s Saratoga program, two worth $75,000 apiece and three worth $50,000. . . . Fran’s Valentine, second to Mom’s Command last Saturday in the Alabama Stakes, may run next in the Gazelle Handicap at Belmont Park Aug. 28. . . . Angel Cordero has never won the Travers, having four seconds and three thirds out of 13 tries. . . . Laffit Pincay, who usually rides Stephan’s Odyssey, has the mount on Spend a Buck at Monmouth Park today. . . . Trainer Wayne Lukas’ horses, who are handled by his son, Jeff, at Saratoga, have won six races, all in stakes. The Lukases don’t have a starter in the Travers, but they have three other stakes runners entered today, including Pancho Villa in the $50,000 King’s Bishop for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs.