HE’S THE REIGNING KING OF BELMONT : Triple Crown on the Line, but So Is Stephens’ Streak

On Friday night, the eve of today’s 119th running of the Belmont Stakes, trainer Woody Stephens made what has become a familiar stop.

Stephens went across the street from Belmont Park to the Fasig-Tipton horse sales offices, and John Finney, president of the company, gave him a red necktie with a horse’s head on it.

This ritual, which began innocently in 1982 on the day before Conquistador Cielo gave Stephens his first of a record five straight Belmont victories, has been followed every year since. Stephens’ trip to Finney’s has become as much a rite of the Belmont as the band playing “Sidewalks of New York” during the post parade.

“I guess everybody who’s been coming to the Belmont must think that these are the only clothes I’ve got,” Stephens said this week, while preparing Gone West and Conquistarose--a son of Conquistador Cielo--for an attempt at a sixth straight Belmont win. “But I’ve got five other neckties hanging in the closet, just like the new one I’ll be wearing Saturday.”

The rest of Stephens’ Belmont garb today will also have the same look--a blue blazer, gray pants and a short-brimmed hat, worn at a boulevardier’s jaunty angle.

Whether or not clothes make the man, horses, of course, make the Belmont. And every year starting in 1982, Stephens has had the horse right here. Not necessarily the best horse of his particular generation, but the best horse on the day they ran the Belmont.

The roll call after Conquistador Cielo has been Caveat, Swale, Creme Fraiche and Danzig Connection.

Today will pose Stephens’ ultimate challenge in the Belmont. Conquistarose hasn’t won a race on dirt this year and will run only if there is rain, which is not in the forecast. And Gone West doesn’t appear to be of the same stripe as Alysheba, who has won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and will be trying to become the 12th Triple Crown champion and the first to sweep the three races since Affirmed in 1978.

In the Belmont, however, the Stephens Factor transcends logic and the small print in the Daily Racing Form. In the 73-year-old trainer’s streak, only Swale was favored, and even though Stephens keeps doing it over and over until somebody else gets it right, all of his winners have had the element of surprise.

Conquistador Cielo prepped for the Belmont by winning the Metropolitan Handicap over the same track against older horses only six days before, and many observers said Stephens was daft.

Caveat wasn’t expected to beat Slew o’ Gold, and wouldn’t have beaten him but for a daredevil ride by Laffit Pincay.

Swale, who also won the Kentucky Derby, was on borrowed time in the Belmont. He died of an unknown cause, collapsing at the barn and expiring before he hit the ground, about a week after the race.

Creme Fraiche, a gelding, wasn’t Stephens’ best horse in the 1985 Belmont. The trainer had more confidence in Stephan’s Odyssey, who finished second, unable to run down his stablemate in the stretch.

Danzig Connection was 8-1, the fifth betting choice in the field. But the track came up sloppy, virtually eliminating Ferdinand, the Kentucky Derby winner. Of the other contenders, Johns Treasure had raced too little to be ready for 1 1/2 miles, and some had raced too much.

Danzig Connection, who thrived on off tracks, was well rested, having skipped the Derby and the Preakness and, typically, Stephens honed him for the Belmont with a useful win in the Peter Pan Stakes a couple of weeks before.

Gone West has also skipped the Derby and Preakness, although Stephens was overruled by the colt’s owner, Virginian James Mills, about running in the Derby, and he also ran in the Peter Pan. Leo Castelli, another Belmont starter, won that 1 1/8-mile race, but Gone West, with jockey Eddie Maple taking him back early for the first time in his career, closed willingly after a wide trip and was only half a length behind at the wire.

Leo Castelli carried only 114 pounds in the Peter Pan, whereas Gone West’s impost was 126, the same weight assigned all the Belmont starters.

“He rated kind, which was good to see,” Stephens said of Gone West. “He might have hung a little bit at the wire, but I was happy with his race, and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t run another good race Saturday.”

Gone West, a son of Mr. Prospector and the Secretariat mare, Secrettame, has won two stakes, but neither was a major victory. Stephens says that potential members of an eventual breeding syndicate have already been making inquiries, but without any significant victories, he may still be out on the limb with Gone West, who was a $1.9-million purchase by Mills.

Very early in the bidding for Gone West, the Clarence Scharbauers were interested, but the escalating price tag scared them off, and they spent $500,000 to buy Alysheba.

The story goes that Stephens had called Mills the day before Gone West went to auction, saying that he liked the colt and thought he could be had for about $500,000. When Stephens told his owner the next day that he had spent almost four times that to get the yearling, Mills reportedly hung up on him.

Now, Stephens says that he was prepared to go even higher to buy Gone West. “I liked him enough to go all the way,” he said. “I would have still been in there at 2 1/2 million.”

It obviously helps that Stephens works for plutocrats. None of his winning Belmont owners--Henryk de Kwiatkowski is the only one to have won the race twice--will ever be found in a bread line.

Still, what Stephens has accomplished is extraordinary. Just having legitimate starters in six straight Belmonts is enough to rattle the mind.

Harvey Pack, the resident handicapper and television personality at Belmont Park, says that the odds against winning five straight Belmonts, based on the national foal count each year, would have been 6 million to 1.

“If you could have made that bet, the payoff would have been enough to cover President Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ and also bailed out all of us horseplayers forever,” Pack said.

Alysheba has been installed as the 8-5 favorite today, with the coupled Leo Castelli and Gulch next at 5-2 and Stephens’ pair at 4-1.

Obviously, the Stephens factor plays a part in that relatively low quotation on his two horses. Bet Twice, despite his close seconds to Alysheba in both the Derby and Preakness, is starting at 5-1.

Stephens himself says that Gone West doesn’t rank with Conquistador Cielo and Swale, whom he considers his best Belmont winners, and says that his latest colt has about the same ability as Danzig Connection, who was nowhere in the voting for divisional champion at the end of last year.

At Belmont Park, where the roadways have street signs with famous horses’ names on them, Stephens’ barn is located near the corner of Secretariat Avenue and Count Fleet Road. Both horses won the Triple Crown, a title that has eluded Stephens, although he’s won the Derby twice, with Cannonade and Swale, and won the Preakness with Blue Man.

In that barn are some of Woody Stephens’ Belmont futures, 2-year-olds that already have him dreaming about 1988. One day this week, Stephens rattled off the names of more than a dozen juveniles, most of them with fancy bloodlines.

To hear the man talk, John Finney may have to keep those red neckties coming.

Horse Racing Notes

Woody Stephens started four horses in the Belmont before his streak began. . . . Asked if it were possible that Gone West, because of the absence of speed in the Belmont, might be returned to his front-running style, Stephens said: “I wouldn’t tell anybody if I was thinking about that, except (jockey) Eddie Maple in the paddock.” . . . All of Gulch’s eight wins have been in New York and he has never lost at Belmont Park. . . . With good weather likely and the Triple Crown possibility, the crowd should be bigger today than the 40,000 Belmont turnouts that have been typical in the 1980s. The last time a horse had a shot at the Triple--Pleasant Colony ran third in 1981--the crowd was 61,200. . . . ABC’s telecast will start at 1:30 PDT, with post time for the Belmont at 2:33.

A win by Alysheba means a $5-million payoff, counting purses in the Derby, Preakness and Belmont and two Triple Crown bonuses. . . . No matter who wins, Alysheba and Bet Twice have a shot at a $1-million bonus that goes to the horse accumulating the most points for highest finishes in the three Triple Crown races. Alysheba can clinch that bonus by finishing first or second. Bet Twice could win it by taking the Belmont but only if Alysheba finished off the board. A win by Bet Twice and a third by Alysheba would result in those horses splitting the $1 million. . . . Bet Twice has been training at Monmouth Park in New Jersey, where trainer Jimmy Croll stables his horses, and will make the 1 1/2-hour van ride to Belmont Park this morning.

There are six stakes on the nine-race Belmont card, the richest besides the $350,000 Belmont being the $200,000 Mother Goose for 3-year-old fillies. The 12-horse Mother Goose includes Buryyourbelief, winner of the Kentucky Oaks, and Grecian Flight, who won the Black-Eyed Susan. . . . Groovy, the crack sprinter who hasn’t run since his disappointing effort as the heavy favorite in the Breeders’ Cup last November at Santa Anita, is running in the Roseben Handicap. . . . Bold Summit and Mister S.M. are the high-weights in the Colin for 3-year-old colts, and Polish Navy, a top 2-year-old last year who had physical problems, will race for the first time this year in the Riva Ridge Stakes.

THE BELMONT FIELD

PP Horse Jockey Trainer Odds 1 a-Conquistarose Jerry Bailey Woody Stephens 4-1 2 a-Gone West Eddie Maple Woody Stephens 4-1 3 Avies Copy Mickey Solomone Dave Kassen 20-1 4 Alysheba Chris McCarron Jack Van Berg 8-5 5 Bet Twice Craig Perret Jim Croll 5-1 6 Manassa Jack Alberto Delgado Mike Downing 50-1 7 Cryptoclearance Laffit Pincay Schulhofer 6-1 8 b-Leo Castelli Jose Santos LeRoy Jolley 5-2 9 Shawklit Won Angel Cordero Frank LaBocetta 20-1 10 b-Gulch Pat Day LeRoy Jolley 5-2

a-Woody Stephens-trained entry.

b-LeRoy Jolley-trained entry.

OWNERS (by post position): 1. Henryk de Kwiatkowski. 2. Hickory Tree Farm. 3. T. Brown Badgett. 4. Dorothy and Pamela Scharbauer. 5. Blanch and Robert Levy, and Cisley Stable. 6. Richard Gavegnano. 7. Philip Teinowitz. 8. Peter M. Brant. 9. Edward Anchel. 10. Peter M. Brant.

TRACK: Belmont Park. WEIGHTS: 126 pounds each. DISTANCE: 1 1/2 miles. PURSE: $553,600 if 10 start. First place: $332,160. Second place: $121,792. Third place: $66,432. Fourth place: $33,216. POST TIME: 2:33 p.m. PDT. TV: Channels 7 and 10 (Coverage begins at 1:30 p.m. PDT).