Cryptoclearance Goes From Rail in Derby to Outside in Preakness

In college football four decades ago, it took a pair from Army, Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis, to be Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside. In this year’s Triple Crown series, which moves into the second round Saturday with the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, Cryptoclearance alone has become Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside.

Much to the displeasure of his handlers, Cryptoclearance drew the dreaded inside post position in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs two weeks ago, then paid the penalty with a rough trip and finished fourth.

Thursday at Pimlico, where Johnny Unitas, once an inimitable Colt himself in this historic harbor town, drew the numbers, Cryptoclearance became Mr. Outside. The Florida Derby winner’s number came up 9 in the nine-horse Preakness.

Scotty Schulhofer, Cryptoclearance’s 60-year-old trainer, was frowning at the draw in Louisville, where the inside is anathema, but Thursday he didn’t mind a bit learning that his horse is going from one extreme to the other.

The Preakness is a tidy package compared to the Kentucky Derby’s 17-horse cavalry charge, and consequently, post positions are less of a factor--especially this year, when Pimlico, under the new management of corporate lawyer Frank De Francis, appears to have lost its inside speed bias.

“People familiar with this track are telling me that there’s no (favoring) bias now,” Schulhofer said. “So that should mean that everybody’s got a shot.”

Cryptoclearance, a smallish colt who was trying to become only the second horse--after Ferdinand last year--in 23 years to win the Derby from the No. 1 stall, was squeezed into oblivion from the start. He salvaged fourth only because of a late, wide run that enabled him to pass tiring horses.

Five of the first six finishers from the Derby are running in the Preakness, which has a purse of $543,600, with $421,100 going to the winner. Besides the Derby winner, Alysheba, and Cryptoclearance, the other holdovers are Bet Twice, who was second; Avies Copy, third, and Gulch, sixth.

Alysheba will again be ridden by Chris McCarron and will break from the No. 6 spot.

Here’s the complete field, starting at the rail: Bet Twice, with Craig Perret riding and 3-1 on the morning line; Harriman, Vince (Jimbo) Bracciale, 30-1; Phantom Jet, Keith Allen, 20-1; No More Flowers, Walter Guerra, 30-1; Lookinforthebigone, Gary Stevens, 12-1; Alysheba, McCarron, 7-5; Gulch, Angel Cordero, 6-1; Avies Copy, Mickey Solomone, 15-1, and Cryptoclearance, Jose Santos, 7-2.

They’ll all carry 126 pounds, the same weight as in the Derby.

There’s a 30% chance of rain here today, with the Saturday forecast calling for partly cloudy and a warming trend that should move temperatures into the 70s.

“I’m happy being where we are,” Schulhofer said. “At least we’ll have a shot to run this time. In the Derby, there was no chance.

“On the outside, we won’t get shut off going into that first turn. The horse should be able to work his way in (toward the rail) from there.”

The Derby was advertised as a wide-open race and it was basically run that way, in its bothersome, roughhouse fashion. Alysheba won by three-quarters of a length as the sixth betting choice. Cryptoclearance, who went off at 6-1, did the best of the horses bet ahead of Alysheba, and Demons Begone, the 2-1 favorite, didn’t even finish after bleeding profusely from both nostrils before reaching the half-mile pole.

Schulhofer gives the Preakness the same billing as the Derby. “I see it as a tightly run race,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if only five or six lengths separates the entire field at the end.”

The feeling is growing here that Alysheba, the only horse with a chance of winning the Triple Crown and the $5-million pot that goes with it, can be had Saturday.

It is a feeling that mushroomed at a little past 7 on a chilly morning Thursday, when Alysheba, in what would be his only workout since the Derby, ran half a mile in a dull 50 3/5 seconds. Alysheba was much sharper in the mornings at Keeneland, where he ran first before being disqualified and penalized back to third in the Blue Grass the week before the Derby, and he was also a faster work horse at Churchill Downs.

Trainer Jack Van Berg, who won his first Preakness with Gate Dancer in 1984, tried to downplay Alysheba’s Thursday workout. Alysheba galloped out five furlongs in 1:05.

“It was slower than I wanted,” Van Berg said. “But if I had a choice, I’d just as soon a work be too slow rather than too fast. If he had done it in :45 or :46, then that would have got me worried.”

The fastest workout of the morning at a half mile was :47 2/5 by a horse regularly stabled at Pimlico. Van Berg thought that Steve Bass, Alysheba’s regular exercise rider, might have overreacted because he had already worked Vigorous Market, a filly running in today’s Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, in :34 3/5 for three furlongs, which the trainer said was faster than he wanted.

One trainer who thinks that Alysheba can be upset is Jimmy Croll, who handles Bet Twice. Staggering in the stretch in the Derby, Bet Twice would have been charged with at least two fouls if Alysheba hadn’t recovered from a heel-clipping and gone on to win.

Both Croll and Craig Perret, Bet Twice’s jockey, have been saying this week that their colt’s erratic path through the Derby stretch was not caused by fatigue, but by his gawking at fans and balloons in the Churchill Downs infield.

“I think my horse is going to run his best race Saturday,” Croll said. “We’ve got the inside post, but that’s not as detrimental here as it is in the Derby. I don’t exactly like having one of the speed horses (Harriman) just outside us, but there’s nothing you can do about that.”

Bet Twice has run two of his best races--wins in last year’s Laurel Futurity and in the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park in March--when coming off a three-or four-week layoff. He got skinned up on one leg in the Derby, which was only two weeks back.

When that point was made with Croll, he said: “I don’t think it will matter. The Derby should have helped get him fit for this race, and he’s done what he’s had to do between these two races.”

Besides Harriman, Croll also visualizes Lookinforthebigone and possibly Avies Copy running ahead of him at the start Saturday.

The long-running pattern in the Preakness has been for winners to either be in the lead on close to it.

Ideally, Croll would like Bet Twice to settle into fourth place heading down the backside. Van Berg is expected to give McCarron instructions that will have the late-running Alysheba closer to the leaders than he was in the early part of the Derby. And then finish faster than he did here Thursday morning.

THE PREAKNESS FIELD

PP Horse Jockey Odds 1 Bet Twice Craig Perret 3-1 2 Harriman Vince Bracciale 30-1 3 Phantom Jet Keith Allen 20-1 4 No More Flowers Walter Guerra 30-1 5 Lookinforthebigone Gary Stevens 12-1 6 Alysheba Chris McCarron 7-5 7 Gulch Angel Cordero 6-1 8 Avies Copy M. Solomone 15-1 9 Cryptoclearance Jose Santos 7-2

TRAINERS (by post position): 1. Jim Croll. 2. Charles Peoples. 3. Philip Gleaves. 4. Happy Alter. 5. Wayne Lukas. 6. Jack Van Berg. 7. LeRoy Jolley. 8. Dave C. Kassen. 9. Scott Sculhofer.

OWNERS (by post position): 1. Blanch and Robert Levy, and Cisley Stable. 2. Bayard Sharp. 3. Aisco Stable. 4. Arthur I. Appleton. 5. Bwamazon Farm. 6. Dorothy and Pamela Scharbauer. 7. Peter M. Brant. 8. T. Brown Badgett. 9. Philip Teinowitz.

TRACK: Pimlico. WEIGHTS: 126 pounds each. DISTANCE: 1 3/16 miles. PURSE: $543,600 if 9 start. First place: $421,100. Second place: $70,000. Third place: $35,000. Fourth place: $17,500. POST TIME: 2:33 p.m. PDT. TV: Channels 7 and 10 (Coverage starts at 1:30 p.m. PDT). RADIO: KABC (Coverage begins at 2 p.m. PDT).