Leukemia Patient to Accept Risen Star’s Eclipse Award

The trophy presenters at the Eclipse Awards dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel will include Merv Griffin, Eva Gabor, Jack Klugman, Dick Van Patten, Tim Conway and Burt Bacharach. John Forsythe will be the master of ceremonies at the annual affair that honors the previous year’s thoroughbred racing champions.

But a 14-year-old girl from Klamath Falls, Ore., figures to upstage them.

Michelle Armstrong, representing Louie Roussel, will accept the bronze Eclipse statuette won by Risen Star, the best 3-year-old colt in the country last year. Roussel is the co-owner and trainer of Risen Star.

They met on the backstretch at Belmont Park last June, this teen-ager who has leukemia and the 43-year-old horseman who once suffered from cancer. A few hours, later, Risen Star won the Belmont Stakes, running the race in a time that only his great sire, Secretariat, had bettered.

Before that sensational race, it had not been an easy morning around Risen Star’s barn. Veterinarians were treating the colt for an inflammation that had flared up in an old ankle injury.

Michelle Armstrong wasn’t feeling so good herself. She had been undergoing chemotherapy. There had even been some question whether she and her mother, Karen, would be able to travel to New York for the Belmont.

But everything was set. Some sheriff’s deputies from the City of Industry had chipped in to help pay for the trip--Michelle’s father, Jack, had worked for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. before he retired and the family moved to southern Oregon--and Churchill Downs, the Triple Crown people and the New York Racing Assn. had arranged for their accommodations at the Belmont.

“I’m not sick and I’m going to the Belmont,” Michelle told her mother.

So they had flown to New York. When Michelle and her family had gone to the Kentucky Derby 6 weeks before, they had traveled by train, which took more than 3 days.

Michelle, whose condition had been diagnosed in November of 1986, had been given that Derby trip by the Oregon Make-a-Wish program, which fulfills dreams of critically ill children. In completing an application for her wish, Michelle told about her 15-year-old riding horse, Nebo, and explained how she wanted to see the filly, Winning Colors, run in the Derby.

Winning Colors not only ran, she became the third filly to win the race, and Michelle was part of the bedlam in the winner’s circle. Gary Stevens, Winning Colors’ jockey, gave her a flower from the blanket of roses. She had fallen in love with Winning Colors after watching on television as the filly won the Santa Anita Derby in April.

Then Risen Star beat Winning Colors while winning the Preakness, the middle leg of the Triple Crown, and he was trying to beat her again in the Belmont.

But after visiting Risen Star the morning of the Belmont Stakes, Michelle Armstrong had a problem.

“Before I met Mr. Roussel, I was rooting for Winning Colors again,” she said this week. “But Mr. Roussel was real nice, and I liked his horse, too.”

So Michelle had her mother bet on both horses in the Belmont. It’s not a good way to bet the races, but it’s the only way to satisfy your heart. And Michelle was in the winner’s circle for the Risen Star celebration after the Belmont.

Then Roussel called the day before Christmas, asking her to accept the award.

So tonight, two horses will be tugging at Michelle’s heartstrings again, because Winning Colors also won an Eclipse, as the year’s best 3-year-old filly.