STEVENS VS. STEPHENS : Remarks by Rider Still Have Veteran Trainer Upset

Although Gary Stevens has ridden horses that have earned $32.2 million in purse money in the last 3 1/2 years, he was still little known east of Santa Anita until he won the Kentucky Derby with Winning Colors last month.

Now, everybody with even a cursory interest in racing knows him.

But probably for the wrong reason.

Depending on your point of view--and probably where you live--Stevens is either (a) the jockey who said what needed to be said after Winning Colors’ bump-a-thon with Forty Niner as she finished third in the Preakness, or (b) a rider who reacted poorly to the riding tactics of Pat Day aboard Forty Niner and then over-reacted by blaming Forty Niner’s trainer, Woody Stephens, for strategy that cost both Forty Niner and Winning Colors the race.

Risen Star, a probable starter in the Belmont, won the Preakness by 2 1/2 lengths over Winning Colors, with Forty Niner running seventh.

As a result of the acrimony that followed the Preakness, Belmont Park may need a sergeant-at-arms in the paddock Saturday when the Belmont Stakes--the finale of the Triple Crown series--is run for the 120th time.

“I’m not coming for a war, I’m coming for a race,” Stevens said the other night on the phone from California.

With Winning Colors trying to become the first filly to win two Triple Crown races--and also attempting to earn a $1-million bonus for highest finishes in the series--Stevens won’t have a vote in the kind of reception he receives Saturday.

The Daily Racing Form, which takes a stand on issues about as often as there’s an eclipse of the sun, has pilloried Stephens for his role in the Preakness brouhaha. Stephens has also been painted as the villain in numerous letters to The Times.

But in New York, Stephens--who starting in 1982 saddled an unprecedented five straight winners in the Belmont--is still revered, and Stevens is the heavy.

“The tirades started when a 25-year-old crybaby named Gary Stevens started pointing some fingers at Stephens on national television, accusing Woody of trying to get his mount, Winning Colors, defeated at all costs,” Bill Finley wrote in the New York Daily News.

Finley also said that it was “comical” for the jockey to suggest that Stephens was jealous of Wayne Lukas, who trains Winning Colors.

The New York press has also quoted Day, defending his ride aboard Forty Niner in the Preakness.

“The defeat of both horses was more Gary’s fault than mine,” Day said. “He made a decision to go with us when he had the opportunity to take back (early in the race) and he didn’t. They were saying all week that the filly could rate. If in fact she was rateable, this was the time to prove it.”

In this Belmont, Stephens will be running Cefis, a colt who was a distant trailer in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. With only 3 wins in 18 starts, Cefis--who carries Stephens’ middle name--admittedly represents the 74-year-old trainer’s worst chance of winning the Belmont in the last seven years.

But Cefis gives Stephens a reason to be in the paddock late Saturday afternoon, and he says that he will have his say when he sees Stevens just before the race.

Stephens said he did not know what he would do if he saw Gene Klein, the owner of Winning Colors, before the race. Klein has said that Stephens “has gone from a Hall of Fame trainer to a hall of shame trainer. He has sullied and almost destroyed a reputation that he had built up over 45 years.”

Sitting at a desk in his Belmont Park office one morning this week, Stephens said: “You know what they call him around here, don’t you? They call him ‘Cryin’ Klein,’ and they’ve even got T-shirts that say that. I was already in the Hall of Fame eight years before the man bought his first horse.

“I’ve been with horses all my life, and I’ve been good to horses and they’ve been good to me. What’s been said--by the Form and by the owner (Klein) and the jockey (Stevens)--has bothered me, but I think real horse people understand. People tell me that all this has made me look bigger than what I was.”

Lukas, who was in the center of the another Preakness controversy in 1980 when his victorious colt, Codex, was accused of roughing up the Kentucky Derby-winning filly, Genuine Risk, has taken an unusually low profile this time. Stephens says he has no gripe with Lukas, and he dismisses Klein’s remarks because of the owner’s newness to the game, but he won’t relent in his counter-attack on Stevens.

“He’s a country boy, he comes from Idaho, where they dig potatoes, and that’s why he’s said things that are so stupid,” Stephens said. “If I had been Lukas, I wouldn’t have ridden him (Stevens) back in the Belmont after the way he rode in the Preakness.”

Very reluctantly, Stevens addressed himself to Stephens’ remarks.

“Sure, I’m from Idaho, but Woody’s from a small place in Kentucky himself,” Stevens said. “I’ve never been a press guy, and it upsets me to keep going back to all this. As far as I’m concerned, the Preakness is history, and all I want to do is win the Belmont.

“I used to look up to Woody, but I don’t now. I just wish that when I’m Woody’s age, someone will look up to me the way I used to look up to him. I could have said more after the Preakness, but I love racing and I didn’t want to hurt the integrity of the game. Enough damage has been done.”

While Stevens would prefer to leave the 120th Belmont to the horses, Stephens undoubtedly plans to keep on talking, right up to post time. And although the Belmont is Woody’s race, this is a year when he figures to be tops in conversation but lagging at the finish line.