THE BELMONT : AFTER THE STORM : Memories of ’78 Let Trainer Look Back Without Anger

On the phone from Atlantic City, N.J., where a casino-hotel had given him an award, trainer Laz Barrera sounded upbeat for a change.

This has not been one of Barrera’s better years. His malaise is not related to losing races, or even to the vexing problems of his favorite baseball team, the New York Yankees, who are playing at a sub-.500 level and who committed six errors the other night.

These are mere trivialities contrasted to what struck Barrera and his son, Albert, a few months ago. Just days apart, they were notified by California racing authorities that horses they ran had tested positive for cocaine in postrace samplings.

The Barreras and some other trainers twisted in the wind before the state, in a development as bizarre as the accusations themselves, dropped the cases last week.

Laz Barrera’s hearing had been scheduled for this week, but now the 65-year-old trainer has the opportunity to talk about Affirmed, the brilliant chestnut colt who became the 11th and most recent horse to sweep the Triple Crown, in 1978.

Sunday Silence, another California-based colt, can become the 12th Triple Crown champion by winning the Belmont Saturday.

In winning the Triple Crown, Affirmed outfinished Alydar in all three races as they established the benchmark by which all great equine rivalries have since been measured. Affirmed beat the late-running Alydar by 1 1/2 lengths in the Derby and by a neck in the Preakness. In the Belmont, after the horses had battled head to head for the last mile of the 1 1/2-mile race, Affirmed and jockey Steve Cauthen, who had recently turned 18, prevailed by a head at the wire.

This year’s Preakness--in which Sunday Silence dueled the length of the Pimlico stretch with Easy Goer before winning by a nose--is being compared to the 1978 Belmont.

There are other comparisons being made with the 1978 Triple Crown, because Easy Goer is a look-alike son of Alydar and could match his sire’s unwanted record of finishing second in all three races.

“I don’t see this as Affirmed and Alydar all over again at all,” Barrera said the other day. “My horse and Alydar raced against each other all those times when they were 2-year-olds, and we beat him most of the time. These two horses didn’t start running against each other until the Derby.”

In 1977, with both horses stabled in New York, Affirmed won four of six races against Alydar. After the Triple Crown, their only other race together resulted in a bittersweet win for Alydar, on a foul in the Travers at Saratoga, which left Affirmed with an edge of 7-3.

Affirmed had run 15 times by the time he reached the Belmont, and the Belmont was Alydar’s 17th race. Saturday will be the ninth start for Sunday Silence and the 12th race for Easy Goer.

“Affirmed had lost about 100 pounds by the time we got to the Belmont,” Barrera said. “We just kept him in light training leading up to the race.”

When Affirmed won the Belmont, the racing world might have been getting jaded about Triple Crown champions. After Citation had won the three races in 1948, there was a gap of 25 years before Secretariat swept the series in 1973, and then Seattle Slew in 1977 and Affirmed became the only consecutive winners of the crown.

“Affirmed was out of gas by the time he got to the Belmont,” said Billy Turner, who trained Seattle Slew. “He looked like he’d run 1,000 races. But Alydar was just as bad because he had run most of the same races. In the Belmont, those two old veterans just leaned on each other all through the stretch.”

Asked if Sunday Silence can replace Affirmed as the most recent winner of the Triple Crown, Barrera said: “He’s got a big chance. I talked to (trainer) Charlie Whittingham the other day, and he said that his horse has been doing wonderfully since he got to New York. He’s already beaten the other horse twice, and that last race--the Preakness--was a big race for Sunday Silence.”

By now, the Alydar-Easy Goer connection is wearing thin with Shug McGaughey, Easy Goer’s trainer. But Whittingham likes the comparison to the 1978 Triple Crown. “Affirmed and Alydar suits me fine,” Whittingham said. “As long as I’ve got Affirmed.”

The Triple Crown has been doubly kind to Barrera. In 1976, he won the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont with Bold Forbes. In the Preakness, Bold Forbes led for three-quarters of a mile while running unrealistically fast fractions, then was run down by Elecutionist in the stretch and finished third, beaten by four lengths.

Still, Barrera believes that the three-race grind over five weeks is too much to ask of a young horse.

“It’s not the distances, it’s the weights the horses are asked to carry,” he said. “They pack 126 pounds in all three races, and that’s a punishing weight for a horse who might not even be technically 3 years old yet. The weight is a crime, because nobody benefits from it. They should make the weight 120 pounds--115 pounds for fillies--and it wouldn’t be as hard on the horses. The jockeys can make that kind of weight. If they can’t, they don’t belong in the game.”

Even though he doesn’t have to prove his innocence over the cocaine matter, Barrera still feels that he was humiliated by the charges. His horse that allegedly tested positive was Endow, a grandson of Exclusive Native, the sire of Affirmed.

“They should have conducted the investigation before they announced our names,” Barrera said. “How many trainers would have the money to defend themselves if their names were involved in something like this? I feel like it’s over, but it won’t ever really go away.”

Horse Racing Notes

Scattered showers might continue here today and Friday. Sunday Silence can handle an off track--as he did in winning the Kentucky Derby--but Easy Goer dislikes mud. Trainer Shug McGaughey said that he would probably still run Easy Goer if there’s an off track Saturday. . . . McGaughey’s wife, Mary Jane, gave birth to their second child--both sons--last Friday. The boy, delivered by Caesarean section, has been named John Reeve McGaughey. . . . Pat Valenzuela, who will ride Sunday Silence in the Belmont, arrived at the track Tuesday and is riding a few races here each day this week.