Horse Racing / Bill Christine : Father’s Day Will Bring Back More Memories for Van Berg and Levy

Father’s Day comes officially on Sunday, but it has already been observed by two horsemen who were successful in this year’s Triple Crown races.

After Alysheba’s victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, trainer Jack Van Berg quickly thanked his late father for giving him the background that led to the winner’s circle at Churchill Downs and Pimlico.

Bob Levy, one of the owners of Bet Twice, who upset Alysheba in the Belmont Stakes and cost Van Berg’s colt the Triple Crown, dedicated the win to his father shortly after the race.

Marion Van Berg, Jack’s father, saddled 4,691 winners and had horses that earned $13.9 million before he died of a stroke at 75 in 1971.

Jack Van Berg, who surpassed his father’s victory total and now has about 5,000 wins, projects the rawhide image of the hardboot, but on national television after the Derby he was so choked up that he could barely talk.

“I’m like my dad, I’ve got horses in my blood,” Van Berg said later. “I got my knowledge of horses from my father, and the good Lord gave me horse sense.”

Leon Levy, Bob’s father, was a dentist who bought into radio in the 1920s, his station growing into the CBS network. Leon Levy began a racing stable shortly after World War II and in 1946 started Atlantic City Race Course with a group that included John B. Kelly, whose daughter Grace worked in the track publicity department before she became an actress and the princess of Monaco.

Marion Van Berg died almost 16 years ago to the day that Alysheba won the Derby.

Leon Levy, who died in 1978, would have been 90 on the day that Bet Twice won the Belmont.

“My dad might be up there handling all this,” Jack Van Berg said after the Derby.

After the Belmont, Bob Levy said: “I know my dad’s up there, smiling and happy.”

Life has been tough for Pearl Grinstead the last few months.

On March 30, her husband, Carl, died after a long battle with stomach cancer.

The same day, the Grinsteads’ Snow Contessa, whose dam earlier produced the champion Snow Chief, severely injured her shoulder and had to be destroyed.

On May 12, the stakes-winning Sari’s Dreamer, an 8-year-old who had been retired to stud in 1985, had a heart attack and died.

Then, last week, Snow Chief, winner of $3.3 million and last year’s champion 3-year-old colt, suffered a tendon injury that has forced his retirement as a runner.

“You name it and I’ve had it happen to me,” said Pearl Grinstead, who was always around Snow Chief and tended to some of the bookkeeping for the partnership she and Carl had with Ben Rochelle. “It’s gotten so that when you wake up in the morning, you don’t know what to expect.”

It was Rochelle’s interest in Sari’s Dreamer that led to the partnership with the Grinsteads. Instead of just buying into the one horse, Rochelle acceded to Carl Grinstead’s proposition and paid $280,000 for a 50% interest in the entire stable, which included a yearling named Snow Chief.

Rochelle was the silent partner who watched Carl make all the racing decisions. With Carl’s death, there are too many horses for what remains of the partnership and 45 of them will be auctioned off at Hollywood Park in October. Not being sold are Snow Chief and Miss Snowflake, the dam of Snow Chief who just recently got in foal after a mating with Alydar.

Pearl Grinstead said Wednesday that she doesn’t know where Snow Chief’s stud career will take him. Despite winning major races every year he competed, Snow Chief has ordinary bloodlines and in a flat breeding market will not attract investment money commensurate with his earnings on the track.

But nothing can dim Pearl Grinstead’s memories. “I think Snow Chief was the people’s horse,” she said. “He had charisma and endeared himself to almost everyone. I can still hear the fans yelling ‘Go, go, Snow Chief,’ when he came on the track.”

The departure of Snow Chief dilutes the ranks of the country’s handicap horses, which were not deep to begin with.

Broad Brush, who is expected to run Saturday in the $200,000 Massachusetts Handicap at Suffolk Downs, is the leader of a crop that should be extremely vulnerable when it faces the current pack of 3-year-olds in the fall.

With an annual foal count estimated at a record 50,000, thoroughbred racing may be experiencing what the team sports go through in expansion. The National Football League tries to euphemize the result as parity, but what really happens is that more becomes less.

Very Subtle, who will be part of the Grinstead-Rochelle dispersal sale in October, is scheduled to run Saturday in the $75,000 Princess Stakes at Hollywood Park. Also expected to start is Buryyourbelief, winner of the Kentucky Oaks and then fourth in the Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park June 6.

Temperate Sil, who hasn’t run since he won the Santa Anita Derby, has been training superbly, but he won’t run with the high weight of 124 pounds in Sunday’s $100,000 Cinema Handicap. The starting top weight is likely to be Something Lucky, who was assigned 119 pounds after winning the Will Rogers Handicap.

Horse Racing Notes It was 75 years ago Wednesday when Wishing Ring paid a record $1,185.50 for a $2 win bet at Latonia Race Course--now Turfway Park--near Cincinnati. The record still stands. . . . Lady’s Secret, horse of the year in 1986, won an allowance race at Monmouth Park recently, registering her first victory since the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita last November. With Snow Chief retired, Lady’s Secret has earned more money than any horse in training and could go over the $3-million mark in her next start. . . . In its second year of operation, Canterbury Downs, near Minneapolis, reportedly lost $8 million last year. Santa Anita has an approximate investment of 25% in the track.

Although Lost Code appears to be the hot 3-year-old of the moment, having won the Ohio Derby for his fifth straight, the horses he has beaten have been the division’s second-stringers and Demons Begone, who was trying to win at 1 1/8 miles while carrying 126 pounds in his first start since bleeding in the Kentucky Derby. . . . The gap left by Tartan Farm’s going out of the business will not be easy for the breeding and racing industry to fill. From Dr. Fager on through Ta Wee, Codex and the star-crossed Ogygian, Tartan was a major presence for more than 20 years. Virginia and Jim Binger bred horses in Florida and Kentucky. . . . Del Mar’s 50th racing season, which runs from July 29 through Sept. 16, includes the $200,000 Eddie Read Handicap Aug. 15, the $150,000 Del Mar Derby Aug. 23, the $150,000 Del Mar Oaks Aug. 30, the $125,000 Del Mar Debutante Sept. 6, the $300,000 Del Mar Handicap Sept. 7, the $150,000 Del Mar/Budweiser Breeders’ Cup Sept. 12, the $150,000 Ramona Handicap Sept. 13 and the $150,000 Del Mar Futurity Sept. 16.