TRIPLE CROWN RATINGS

REMARKS: While trainer Murray Johnson is tending to his seven-horse stable at Churchill Downs these days, his wife, Kim, is at Belmont Park, getting Green Alligator ready for the Belmont Stakes, the final Triple Crown race, June 8.

“It’s not the best situation,” Murray Johnson said from Pleasureville, Ky., a tobacco-farming community about 50 miles from Churchill Downs. “But here I am, with the seven horses and the two kids.”

Their two young daughters are the reason the Johnsons left California this spring and moved the family to Kentucky. They wanted a more sedate environment for rearing their children.

The Johnsons’ move to Pleasureville coincided with Green Alligator’s fourth-place finish as part of the five-horse parimutuel field in the Kentucky Derby. But the Derby was almost an afterthought. After Green Alligator won the California Derby at Golden Gate Fields, Murray Johnson announced that the next goal was the Belmont. As it turned out, the prep race Green Alligator needed was the Kentucky Derby, in which he finished about 2 1/2 lengths behind the winner, Strike The Gold.

Between pregnancies, Kim Johnson has been Green Alligator’s regular exercise rider. She and her husband met in Aiken, S.C., when he was working with some yearlings who would eventually be sent to trainer Shug McGaughey in New York. One of those horses was Pine Circle, who finished second in the Belmont, behind Swale, in 1984.

Green Alligator, bought privately for $77,000 by Anderson Fowler, Kim Johnson’s grandfather, after the colt went through an auction and didn’t meet his minimum reserve of $80,000, probably won’t get much attention from the Belmont bettors. “I think we’ve got a great shot,” Murray Johnson said. “Green Alligator was much farther back than we wanted to be in the early part of the Derby. It was because he wasn’t getting a hold of the track. Then at the half-mile pole, he took the bit. At the top of the lane, he was only about 3 1/2 lengths behind Strike The Gold and running with the top horses, but Corey (Nakatani) had trouble getting to the outside. If we could have gotten to the outside right there instead of having to wait, there’s no telling what would have happened.

“But the important thing is that the Derby has put us where we want to be with our horse. Despite the added distance (1 1/2 miles, quarter of a mile farther than the Derby), I know that the history of the Belmont shows that horses don’t come from very far back to win the race, so we know the colt will have to be closer than he’s been in some of his races.”

Nakatani, whose mounts have earned more than $3 million this year, making him one of the nation’s leading jockeys, has a choice of mounts for the Belmont. The other is Lite Light, the filly who won the Kentucky Oaks the day before the Derby. Nakatani said Monday that he would ride Lite Light if she runs in the Belmont. Lite Light and Hansel, the Preakness winner, both are bleeders who can’t be treated with Lasix because of New York rules, and this makes them tentative for the Belmont. The Lewis Burrell Sr. family, which owns Lite Light, is also concerned about the filly running in a large field. There are nine expected starters, and five others might join the field.

Expected to run are Strike The Gold, Mane Minister, Green Alligator, Corporate Report, Lost Mountain, Another Review, Paulrus, Quintana and Scan. They might be joined by Hansel, Lite Light, Man Alright, Subordinated Debt and Smooth Performance. Subordinated Debt finished second to Greek Costume in Monday’s Jersey Derby. Smooth Performance is an Irish-raced son of Seattle Slew who is trained by Dermot Weld, who brought Go And Go from Ireland to win last year’s Belmont.

Lost Mountain’s camp got a lift Sunday when their colt, who had been winless since a maiden race last October, won the Peter Pan at Belmont by a head over Man Alright. Scan, who hasn’t won a race as a 3-year-old, finished third and Quintana was fourth. Scan carried 126 pounds, 12 more than Lost Mountain.

Advisory panel for The Times’ Triple Crown Ratings: Lenny Hale, vice president for racing at Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga; Frank (Jimmy) Kilroe, director of racing emeritus at Santa Anita; and Tommy Trotter, director of international racing at Arlington International Racecourse.

TRIPLE CROWN RATINGS

Career Horse S 1 2 3 Earnings 1. Strike The Gold 9 3 2 1 $1,034,610 2. Hansel 11 6 1 2 1,244,106 3. Mane Minister 10 3 0 4 291,280 4. Green Alligator 8 2 4 0 256,500 5. Corporate Report 6 3 2 0 286,160 6. Lite Light 14 7 2 1 928,391 7. Best Pal 12 6 3 1 1,293,695 8. Olympio 9 5 1 0 611,965 9. Fly So Free 11 7 1 1 1,382,004 10. Dinard 5 4 1 0 452,750