Peteski Wins Again, in Woodbine Million : Horse racing: He defeats Sea Hero, Colonial Affair, further muddying the 3-year-old picture.

Peteski didn’t win his first race until six days before Sea Hero won this year’s Kentucky Derby.

Since then, the Canadian-bred, American-owned Peteski has been trying to catch up, and on Sunday in suburban Toronto he caught and passed the best 3-year-olds in the United States by winning the Molson Export Million by four lengths. Among the five horses Peteski beat were Sea Hero; Colonial Affair, winner of the Belmont Stakes; and Kissin Kris, another major stakes winner.

Before Sunday’s victory at Woodbine, Peteski had become the sixth winner of Canada’s Triple Crown, restricted to horses bred in Canada. The American Triple Crown is open to all comers.

All of Peteski’s seven victories from 10 starts have come over Canadian tracks, but his $600,000 victory in the Molson establishes the son of Affirmed, the 1978 American Triple Crown champion, as one of the best 3-year-olds in North America and thrusts him into the forefront for the division’s Eclipse Award.

Ridden by Craig Perret, Peteski overtook his pace-setting stablemate, Cheery Knight, and was never headed in the 1 1/8-mile Molson. The winner carried 121 pounds, five less than Sea Hero. Cheery Knight hung on for second, three-quarters of a length ahead of Sea Hero, and Kissin Kris, Truth of It All and Colonial Affair completed the order of finish. Timed in 1:49 1/5, Peteski paid $5.30 to win. He was supplemented into the race for $15,000.

Earle Mack, a New York real estate developer who has been running horses for 30 years, bought Peteski and another horse in April from Barry Schwartz, Peteski’s breeder, for $150,000. Peteski had run only once as a 2-year-old, and after a second-place finish in his only American race, at Keeneland this spring, Attfield took him with the rest of his horses to Woodbine.

At Woodbine and Fort Erie, Peteski has won eight of nine starts, the only loss coming in a second-place finish to Circulating in the Queens Plate Trial Stakes. Perret, a leading American jockey, infuriated Canadian racing authorities, suggesting after he and Peteski won the Queens Plate that they might have won the Trial, too, if he had pushed the colt. Perret was suspended for 15 days, fined $4,000 and required to make a public apology. The penalty cost Perret the ride on Peteski in the Prince of Wales Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown.

The final race in Peteski’s Triple Crown sweep was on grass, and both Attfield and Perret say that the colt is a better horse on turf than dirt. Ahead, probably, is another $1-million race, the Rothmans International on grass at Woodbine on Oct. 17, and after that Attfield can consider his options for the $10-million, seven-race Breeders’ Cup Day at Santa Anita on Nov. 6.

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Colonial Affair’s last-place finish in the Molson brought trainer Scotty Schulhofer’s sensational weekend to an unhappy close. While Schulhofer was at Woodbine, saddling Colonial Affair, his 5-year-old mare, Shared Interest, scored an upset in the $200,000 Ruffian Handicap at Belmont Park. Schulhofer also won two stakes Saturday at Belmont, the Matron with Strategic Maneuver and the Fall Highweight Handicap with Fly So Free.

Shared Interest, the longest shot on the board, made the early lead on a muddy track and finished two lengths ahead of Dispute. It was another three lengths back to Turnback The Alarm, with You’d Be Surprised running fourth, and Paseana, last year’s Eclipse winner as best older filly or mare, finishing last in the five-horse field.

Robbie Davis, who was scheduled to start a 10-day suspension Sunday, appealed the stewards’ ruling and kept the mount on Shared Interest. Although the Belmont track had been favoring closers Sunday, Davis took Shared Interest to the front when no one else seemed to want the lead. They were never challenged.

Shared Interest, who paid $28.80 after running 1 1/16 miles in 1:41 4/5, ran 11th last October when Paseana won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Gulfstream Park. Sunday’s victory was Shared Interest’s first in a stake in more than 11 months.