Bet Twice Is Supreme in Haskell : Belmont Winner Defeats Alysheba, Lost Code in Thriller

Seldom does a major horse race get inundated in advance ballyhoo and then deliver the goods. But Saturday’s $500,000 Haskell Invitational Handicap was no inflated spectacle. It brought the country’s three best 3-year-olds together for a couple of minutes on a hot, sticky afternoon at Monmouth Park, and they ran a better script than any publicity department could have concocted.

At the end of the 1 1/8 miles, Bet Twice had held off Alysheba by a neck to win the $300,000 first prize, and the gritty Lost Code was only a neck farther back in third place. Bob Levy, the gracious part-owner and spokesman for Bet Twice, said that if the same three colts ran the race again today, there might be a different outcome, and no one in the crowd of 32,836 fans would probably care to refute him.

While the public and the media wondered whether Alysheba could run without his bleeder medication and with his skin rash, and whether Lost Code could step into the big leagues and duplicate his achievements in the South and Midwest, Bet Twice rather quietly trained for his first start since that 14-length victory in the Belmont Stakes seven weeks ago.

Unlike the Belmont, Bet Twice was the hunter instead of the hunted in the early going, and his nemesis, Alysheba, was trying to overtake him in the stretch, as he had successfully done in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.

This time, Alysheba ran out of real estate at the wire, after taking the wide way around with jockey Chris McCarron at the top of the stretch.

“The conditions (of the race) don’t say it’s a mile and an eighth and one jump,” said McCarron, who with Jack Van Berg, Alysheba’s trainer, absorbed some stinging remarks from a hundred or more fans as the two walked through the tunnel from the track to the jockeys’ room after the race. It was the kind of vitriol that livid New Yorkers usually save for Angel Cordero when he’s unable to win there with a favorite.

McCarron admitted that he had placed Alysheba too far back in the Belmont, but he made no apologies for his ride Saturday, and there was no second-guessing from Van Berg.

At the head of the stretch, Lost Code and Gene St. Leon were a couple of feet off the rail, grudgingly trying to keep Bet Twice and Craig Perret from passing them on the outside. Alysheba was on the rail, a couple of lengths behind the two leaders, when McCarron swung him to the far outside.

“The hole was closing faster than I was, and I decided to go around,” McCarron said. “My colt was running hard, but so were the other two. They had a length advantage on us, and it would have been hard to catch up.”

In reviewing videotapes of previous races Saturday morning, Van Berg and McCarron noticed that Lost Code, who came into the Haskell with a seven-race winning streak, frequently drifted out in the stretch.

“But he didn’t do it that much today,” Van Berg said after the Haskell. “I don’t think Chris could have gotten through. The jockey (St. Leon) riding ahead of him wouldn’t have let him through. Gene had us where he wanted us.”

Perret had both Lost Code and Alysheba where he wanted them. Bet Twice pressured Lost Code through blazing early fractions--1:09 3/5 for six furlongs and 1:34 for the mile--and, after a slight brushing with Lost Code midway through the stretch, got to the wire in 1:47, which tied the stakes record that Majestic Light set in 1976. Bet Twice also just missed the track record of 1:46 4/5 that Spend a Buck set in 1985.

“I didn’t think that jockeys made any difference, but today Craig earned it,” Levy said of Perret. “He controlled the race, and that was the difference.”

Bet Twice, a Monmouth-based horse who was running on his home track for the first time since he won his first three starts here last year, increased his earnings to $2.6 million. Bet Twice went off the favorite after heavy early money on Lost Code and paid $4.60 and $2.60, with no show wagering for the five-horse field. Alysheba, who wound up the second choice, paid $3 to place.

The other horses were in the race only in a matter of speaking, with Clever Secret fourth, beaten by more than 12 lengths, and Born To Shop last, about half a county back.

With Lost Code setting the pace, Bet Twice was never more than a length back, and McCarron had Alysheba much closer than usual, about three lengths behind going down the backstretch.

“I knew that I wanted a good, clean shot at Lost Code by the time we got to the three-eighths pole,” Perret said. “If there had been a foul claim, there wasn’t enough contact in the stretch to disqualify me.

“Lost Code proved that he fits with these horses, but they’re tough boys out there.”

Jimmy Croll, who trains Bet Twice, was surprised at the toughness of Lost Code.

“He ran better than I anticipated,” Croll said. “I underestimated him, because I didn’t think he’d last. I had all the confidence in the world in my colt going into the race, and I thought we had enough to hold off Alysheba at the wire.”

Levy, who is the president of Atlantic City Race Course, speculated about what might have happened if Alysheba had been able to reach Bet Twice sooner.

“There’s no certainty that he would have blown by us,” he said.

McCarron was still pleased with Alysheba’s race. “He proved two things,” he said. “He can run well without using Lasix (for bleeding) and he’s versatile enough to stay in the race without having to come from real far back.”

Alysheba, who bled for the first time at Santa Anita in March, was treated with Lasix in the next four races, including the Derby and the Preakness, but couldn’t run on it in the Belmont because of New York rules. Alysheba was taken off the medication Saturday, even though it is permissible in New Jersey. Van Berg and Alysheba’s owners, the Clarence Scharbauers, thought they had something to prove.

The Haskell pot was raised from $300,000 to $500,000 as a lure to get Alysheba to run, and Van Berg said that if it hadn’t been for the pre-race hullabaloo, he would have scratched the horse because of his rash, which broke out a couple of weeks ago and covered his girth area.

“It’s like a person having shingles and trying to run in a marathon,” Van Berg said. “I still think he’s the best 3-year-old in the country. He got knocked to his knees (by Bet Twice) and still won the Derby, he got knocked sideways (in the stretch) in the Belmont (finishing fourth), and today he had to go to the outside and still only barely got beat.”

Alysheba will get another shot at Bet Twice, since both horses are scheduled to run 1 miles in the $1-million Travers at Saratoga Aug. 22. Lost Code, a Lasix horse who will not be able to use it to run in the Travers, is likely to make his next start in the $300,000 Pegasus, at 1 1/8 miles, at the Meadowlands in New Jersey Sept. 19.

“My colt showed a lot of determination today,” said Bill Donovan, Lost Code’s trainer, “and I’m not afraid of those other two horses. But I’m looking forward to getting away from ‘em, too.”