Alysheba Has Just One More Run for All the Money

While Jack Van Berg, Alysheba’s trainer, interrupted his Triple Crown campaign to hurry to Columbus, Neb., Sunday for a son’s high school graduation, trainers and jockeys at Pimlico debated the quality of the crop of 3-year-olds this year.

“None of these horses look like the next coming of Man o’ War,” said trainer Dave Kassen, whose Avies Copy has run third and fifth, respectively, while Alysheba has won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, becoming the first horse to take the first two legs of the Triple Crown since Pleasant Colony in 1981.

If Alysheba can win the Belmont Stakes in New York on June 6, he will not only be the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed in 1978, but he will also have the biggest single payday in thoroughbred history.

Alysheba has already banked $1,039,700 in purses from the Derby and the Preakness and since the guarantee for a Triple Crown sweep this year is $5 million, the Belmont becomes a $3,960,300 race--purse and guarantee--for Van Berg’s colt.

The record for the biggest payoff won by a thoroughbred in one race is $2.6 million, which was set by Spend a Buck in 1985 when he took a $600,000 purse and a $2-million bonus by capturing the Jersey Derby at Garden State Park.

If Alysheba doesn’t become the 12th horse to sweep the Triple Crown, he is still eligible for a $1 million bonus that goes to a non-Triple Crown winner if he runs in all three of the races and accumulates the most points for high finishes.

Alysheba has 10 points, five each for his Derby and Preakness wins. Bet Twice is the only other horse in contention with six points, having gained three each for runner-up finishes in both races.

Bet Twice would have to win the Belmont to have a chance at the $1 million, and even if he wins in three weeks, Alysheba could still grab the bonus by finishing second. If Bet Twice won the Belmont and Alysheba finished third, they would have 11 points apiece and split the bonus. If Bet Twice won the Belmont and Alysheba finished out of the money, then Bet Twice would claim the entire $1 million.

Alysheba has been generally tagged with the reputation of being less than a standout horse because he’s only won three races in his life and his times in the Derby and Preakness were mediocre. The Derby time was the slowest in 14 years and the Preakness clocking was the slowest in 12 years.

Wayne Lukas, who has had four starters in this year’s Derby and Preakness and not finished better than seventh, defends this year’s 3-year-old crop.

“There are a lot of good horses in this bunch,” Lukas said. “Wait until the end of the year, when they face the older horses. Right now, there probably are only three or four horses to speak of in the handicap division, and I think the 3-year-olds will do well running against them in the fall.”

One of those handicap stars is Broad Brush, winner of the Santa Anita Handicap and headed for either the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park a week from today or the Californian at Hollywood Park on June 7. Last year, as a 3-year-old, Broad Brush was third in the Derby, third in the Preakness and didn’t run in the Belmont.

“Let’s put it this way, I would have loved to have had my horse face this year’s crop instead of last year’s,” said Dick Small, Broad Brush’s trainer.

Van Berg feels that Alysheba isn’t a second-rate Triple Crown contender.

“You can’t compare horses from year to year,” the trainer said. “But I think that if you race against the best three or four times and beat them, then you’re a good horse.”

In one sense, Alysheba actually has a three-race winning streak, only he lost the first victory on a foul, after finishing first in the Blue Grass the week before the Derby.

Jimmy Croll, Bet Twice’s trainer, has still another view of the 3-year-old class.

“There are a couple of good 3-year-olds who haven’t run yet,” Croll said Sunday. “They might be tigers once they get to the track.”

None of these tigers in the rough will challenge Alysheba in the Belmont, which probably will draw the first three Preakness finishers--Bet Twice and Cryptoclearance besides the winner--plus a small number of other horses. Polish Navy, a top 2-year-old last year, is coming off an injury and is being pointed for the $1-million Travers at Saratoga in August, as are Hay Halo, a half-brother to Broad Brush, and Java Gold.

John Ed Anthony, who owns Demons Begone, said Sunday that there is only a “remote possibility” that his colt will run in the Belmont. Demons Begone was an undefeated 3-year-old and favored in the Derby, but he bled in the race and ran only a half-mile.

Other than Bet Twice and Cryptoclearance, Alysheba’s chief opposition in the Belmont appears to be Gone West and Conquistarose, two Woody Stephens-trained horses. Stephens has won the Belmont five straight years.

Alysheba has been running with furosemide, an anti-bleeding medication, for the last four races and Angel Cordero feels this will be a factor in the Belmont, since New York’s racing rules don’t permit horses to run on any medication. Cordero finished fourth aboard Gulch in the Preakness.

“Alysheba’s got a good trainer and a good jockey, but let’s see how he runs in the Belmont without medication,” Cordero said. “It might make a difference.”

Although Alysheba was certified by two veterinarians at Santa Anita as a horse who could use furosemide prior to his running second in the San Felipe Handicap on March 22, he has not bled in either a workout or a race and is not a bleeder in the sense that Demons Begone is.

Van Berg said that Alysheba was allowed to run on furosemide because of the infection that eventually was overcome by a minor throat operation after the San Felipe. The horse ran on furosemide in Kentucky and Maryland as a precaution against bleeding.

A trainer still bleeding from the heart Sunday after the Preakness was Scotty Schulhofer, who continued to be furious over the ride his Cryptoclearance got from Jose Santos. The inside of the Pimlico racing strip had been difficult for horses to handle in all the races prior to the Preakness, yet Santos had Cryptoclearance on the rail throughout most of the race.

After the race, Santos told Schulhofer that he got trapped on the rail, and stayed there because there was no traffic.

“Sure, nobody was there,” Schulhofer said. “That’s because every other rider in the race knew that the rail was the wrong place to be.”

Cryptoclearance, who had an unfortunate trip when he finished fourth in the Derby, was third, beaten by two lengths, in the Preakness.

“The first three letters in my horse’s name are c-r-y,” Schulhofer said. “That’s what I feel like doing after this race.”