HORSE RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Triple Crown Runs ‘Ridiculous,’ Says Lukas, Still Trying to Win

There is no czar in racing and there probably never will be. To fill the void, trainer Wayne Lukas, when invited Thursday to discuss the Triple Crown, gave the sport’s most important series a few suggestions, free of charge.

Lukas, the country’s leading trainer based on purses for the last nine years, has won three Triple Crown races, taking the Kentucky Derby with Winning Colors in 1988 and the Preakness with Codex in 1980 and Tank’s Prospect in 1985. Those three ran unsuccessfully in the Belmont Stakes, the Triple Crown’s final race, and on Saturday Lukas will take his seventh shot at the Belmont when he runs Al Sabin, who is 20-1 on the morning line.

Eleven horses have won the Triple Crown, but for the 14th consecutive year, no one will be sweeping the races last won by Affirmed in 1978. Sir Barton was the first Triple Crown winner in 1919; Gallant Fox, Omaha and War Admiral swept the series in the 1930s; Whirlaway, Count Fleet, Assault and Citation were Triple Crown champions in the 1940s and then came Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed in the 1970s. The biggest gap in Triple Crown champions has been 25 years, which ended with Secretariat’s sweep in 1973.

“Suppose you took somebody from another planet and dropped him on Earth,” Lukas said. “Then everybody sat down and discussed a three-race championship that would begin in early May with undeveloped 3-year-olds running a mile and a quarter (the Kentucky Derby). Then the next race would be a mile and three-sixteenths, two weeks later in Baltimore (the Preakness). Then three weeks after that, the horses would be asked to run a mile and a half in New York (the Belmont). It would sound like such a ridiculous idea that everybody would get up and leave.”

Lukas’ proposal is that the Derby be shortened to 1 1/8 miles. The Preakness distance could be left the same and the Belmont cut to 1 1/4 miles, which is the Derby distance now.

“The way we’re breeding horses now, the bloodlines don’t give a horse much chance of running a mile and a half,” Lukas said. “If the Belmont wasn’t a mile and a half, you’d have a lot better field running Saturday.”

Lukas may be a visionary, but he’s also a realist.

“I don’t think any of this will ever happen,” he said.

When the 11 horses swept the Triple Crown, there was no series bonus. Since 1987, the Chrysler automobile people have sponsored a $5-million payoff to a horse that wins all three races and, in the event of no sweep, there is a $1-million bonus for the horse that racks up the most points for high finishes. Chrysler also presents automobiles to the jockeys who ride winners of Triple Crown races.

“As long as I’m on my soap box, I’d like to give Chrysler something to consider,” Lukas said. “Why not give the keys of the car to the horse’s groom? He’s the guy who spends 14 hours a day with the horse. The jockeys have been picking up the cars for two minutes’ work.

“Chris McCarron (the rider of Pine Bluff) came into Baltimore, rode the horse for the first time and for two minutes’ work he got $50,000, plus the car. That’s ludicrous.”

Actually, McCarron’s share of the Preakness purse, based on a jockey’s standard 10%, amounted to slightly more than $48,000.

“If you gave that car to the groom, it would be a tremendous human-interest story,” Lukas said. “It would wind up on the front page of every newspaper in the country.”

Some of the car-winning jockeys have given their awards to charity. Jerry Bailey did that a year ago after he won the Preakness with Hansel. This year, after winning the Derby with Lil E. Tee, Pat Day said that he would keep the car because of the sentimental value attached to his first Derby victory, but added that he would donate the value of the vehicle--about $20,000--to a Louisville children’s hospital he had visited the day before the race.

Strike The Gold, the Kentucky Derby winner who lost the next 12 races before he won the Pimlico Special on May 9, is the 5-2 favorite Saturday in the $500,000 Nassau County Handicap, which is another race on the Belmont Stakes card.

The Nassau County is Round 5 in the nine-race American Championship Racing Series, which awards $1.5 million in bonuses to the top four horses based on a point system. Best Pal is in the lead for the $750,000 first prize with 23 points, based on victories in the Santa Anita and Oaklawn Handicaps and a fourth-place finish in the Pimlico Special.

Skipping Saturday’s race, Best Pal is back in California. The remaining races in the series are the Hollywood Gold Cup on June 27, the New England Classic at Rockingham Park on July 18, the Iselin Handicap at Monmouth Park on Aug. 9 and the Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 30.

The Nassau County, at 1 1/8 miles, will be buried by the attention given to Saturday’s Belmont Stakes. There is a possibility that the stake will be re-positioned on the racing calendar next year.

There is also a chance that the Oaklawn Handicap might be replaced by a championship series race at Churchill Downs the week before next year’s Kentucky Derby. Barry Weisbord, president of the championship series, and Charles Cella, the owner of Oaklawn Park, had some bitter differences before this year’s Oaklawn Handicap.

Dance Floor, a 3-year-old who has dropped out of the Triple Crown series after running third in the Derby and fourth in the Preakness, faces older horses in the Nassau County and has drawn the No. 1 post with Mike Smith riding. Dance Floor has been assigned low weight of 109 pounds, 11 less than Twilight Agenda and In Excess, but Smith has been riding recently at 112 pounds.

The rest of the lineup, in post-position order, consists of Silver Ending, with Gary Stevens riding, 114 pounds; In Excess, Chris Antley, 120; Twilight Agenda, Chris McCarron, 120; Strike The Gold, Craig Perret, 116; Out Of Place, Herb McCauley, 114; Pleasant Tap, Eddie Delahoussaye, 119; Fly So Free, Jose Santos, 116; and Sultry Song, Jerry Bailey, 111.

Pleasant Tap is second on the morning line at 3-1. At 4-1 are Dance Floor and Twilight Agenda, who run coupled as a Wayne Lukas-trained entry.

Twilight Agenda and Sea Cadet are behind Best Pal in the standings with 17 points apiece. Strike The Gold has 10 points for his Pimlico victory, and in fifth place with eight points is Fly So Free.

Horse Racing Notes

Angel Cordero, whose retirement from riding was hastened by serious injuries suffered in a spill at Aqueduct in January, hasn’t had his first training victory yet, but he’s optimistic about two 2-year-olds that were sent to him by owner-breeder Thomas Mellon Evans. Cordero spent eight hours in a hospital last week, the result of apparent food poisoning that he suffered while eating with trainer Wayne Lukas. . . . Berkley Fitz, who had been a possibility for the Belmont, will run here instead Saturday in the $100,000 Colin Stakes for 3-year-olds. Chris McCarron has the mount. Others in the 12-horse field include Tri To Watch, Big Sur and Speakerphone. Another entrant in the 1 1/8-mile race, Chief Speaker, is trained by James Bond, whose barn logo is the 007 Stable.