TRIPLE CROWN RATINGS

REMARKS: When Alysheba’s winning time in the Kentucky Derby--2:03 2/5, which is the slowest since Cannonade’s 2:04 in 1974--was mentioned to a trainer, he said:

“I’m sure Jack Van Berg didn’t wake up Sunday morning and say to himself: ‘Geez, I won the Kentucky Derby Saturday, but I wish my horse could have done it in a faster time.’ ”

When Van Berg, the trainer of Alysheba, did wake up Sunday morning and someone asked him about the time, he said:

“Time only counts if you’re in prison. I’ve run too many horses in places like Detroit, Mich., to be worried about time. In Detroit, you can run a $2,500 horse and he’ll go in 1:10, then they’ll run the stake the same day in 1:11. But if you ran the $2,500 horse against the stakes winner, you wouldn’t be able to find the cheap horse with a search warrant.”

Still, Alysheba’s time was dull, even if you allow for the fact that he almost fell after clipping the heels of Bet Twice, who had the lead at the three-sixteenths pole but repeatedly tried to block Alysheba’s path the rest of the way. Years from now, people will look at Alysheba’s time and wonder if it came on a fast track.

Earlier on Derby day, ordinary horses were flirting with track records at Churchill Downs. A filly making only her second start missed the six-furlong mark by just three-fifths of a second; a colt who had been claimed for $40,000 came within fourth-fifths of a second of tying the 6 1/2-furlong record.

But Van Berg felt that the track surface changed between the time the early races were run and the Derby.

“I know this track like the back of my hand,” he said. “And during the hour’s break before the Derby, there was a hot wind blowing. As a result, the track wasn’t as fast.”

That change in condition affected Van Berg’s instructions to jockey Chris McCarron before the Derby.

“I told him not to be fooled by those early races, when the speed was holding up,” Van Berg said. “I said that there would be other guys in the Derby sending their horses because of that, but not to worry about it.”

In the Preakness at Pimlico on May 16, Alysheba will try to become the first horse to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown series since Pleasant Colony in 1981. Two of the Derby winners in the last five years--Gato Del Sol and Spend a Buck--didn’t run in the Preakness.

The four horses that finished behind Alysheba will also run in the Preakness, and the trainers of two of them have a right to think that it might be a different day.

Bet Twice, who finished second, ran a good race before be began coming out in the stretch. He was leg weary but still showed some of the form he had before a disappointing fifth-place finish in the Florida Derby. The 1 3/16-mile Preakness is 105 yards shorter than the Derby and that distance should suit Bet Twice better.

Cryptoclearance, fifth in the Derby, should run a better race at Pimlico, too. He had the No. 1 post, an albatross, in the 17-horse Derby, was crowded into the rail, suffered a minor cut on his shoulder and was bleeding during the entire race.

Career Horse S 1 2 3 Earnings 1.Alysheba 11 2 5 2 $1,041,626 2.Bet Twice 10 6 2 1 914,047 3.Cryptoclearance 11 5 2 1 545,750 4.Demons Begone 10 6 2 0 573,394 5.Java Gold 9 5 1 1 336,552 6.Masterful Advocate 10 5 2 1 536,425 7.Gulch 12 7 1 1 957,050 8.Gone West 10 4 3 2 395,549 9.Avies Copy 11 2 2 1 104,200 10.Templar Hill 12 4 3 2 224,593

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