Tabasco Cat Looks to Stop This Streak : Belmont: He gets another chance to beat Brocco after losing their first three meetings by a combined 11 lengths.

When they first met, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita last November, Brocco won by five lengths. Tabasco Cat was third, 6 1/2 lengths behind.

When they met again in April in the Santa Anita Derby, Brocco won, beating Tabasco Cat by three-quarters of a length.

Then last month, in the Kentucky Derby, Brocco overcame a terrible start to finish fourth, with Tabasco Cat two positions and 3 3/4 lengths back.

So in three meetings, Brocco has outfinished Tabasco Cat every time, establishing his superiority by a combined 11 lengths. But on Preakness day at Pimlico three weeks ago, while Tabasco Cat was winning by three-quarters of a length, Brocco was 200 miles to the north, taking an easy gallop around Belmont Park in preparation for Saturday’s 126th running of the Belmont Stakes.

“Sure, it hurts a little,” said Brocco’s trainer, Randy Winick, who is campaigning the most important horse of a 20-year career. “We’ve beaten Tabasco Cat three times, and he wins the Preakness and we don’t. But I’m not going to cry about it. I’ve made a judgment call, about skipping the Preakness, and I’m still not second-guessing myself. But I’ll feel a lot better if we win at least one Triple Crown race.”

With the Triple Crown sweep no longer possible after the Kentucky Derby, the 44-year-old Winick turned to his next goal for Brocco, November’s $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs.

No matter what happens Saturday, Brocco will get a rest. His next race will be in August, against 3-year-olds in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga or against older horses in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. Winick will probably use the Super Derby, at Louisiana Downs in October, as a prep for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

“I have the feeling that the Breeders’ Cup is going to be won by a 3-year-old,” Winick said. “I’m not that impressed by the older horses this year. Look at what Holy Bull did to them in the Metropolitan Mile here.”

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Wait! Wait! Wait!

This was Gary Stevens, Brocco’s jockey, yelling to a Churchill Downs assistant starter while his colt gawked around in the gate a few seconds before the start of the Kentucky Derby.

Despite Stevens’ pleas, Tom Wagoner, a starter with a quick-on-the-trigger reputation, pressed his button and sent the 14 horses on their way, about half of them in various forms of distress.

“Maybe if they had waited a second or two, we would have been all right,” Winick said.

In the No. 10 stall, Brocco was one of the last horses to be loaded. Ulises, a horse on the inside, was reluctant to enter his stall and gave the assistant starters a lot of trouble.

“My horse was standing well at first,” Winick said. “But then there was a delay and he started looking around. He broke flat-footed. We were supposed to be fourth or fifth early. Instead we were ninth, 10 to 12 lengths behind. He had to be used quite a bit to catch up. His run stopped at the quarter pole. He didn’t collapse, but he just wasn’t able to sustain his drive.”

For Holy Bull, the favorite, the Derby was even worse. He was squeezed leaving the gate, never recovered and wound up 12th. Trainer Jimmy Croll ruled out the Preakness and ran Holy Bull in the Metropolitan, which produced a 5 1/2-length victory in a solid mile time of 1:33 4/5.

Croll considered the Belmont for a couple of days, then told disappointed Belmont Park officials that Holy Bull wouldn’t be coming.

“I think that decision had more to do with the trainer than the horse,” New York trainer John Veitch said. “Explaining what happened in the Derby wore Mr. Croll out, and I don’t think he wanted to be subjected to all that again. Besides, he got the horse as a gift (an inheritance, actually). He’s already way ahead. The rest of us, we’d be running because of the money involved.”

The precise amount of money on the line at 1 1/2 miles Saturday is $658,800, with $395,280 going to the winner.

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Seven horses were named when entries were drawn for the Belmont Stakes Thursday, and Donald La Place, the Belmont Park linemaker, had difficulty making Strodes Creek the favorite, as some handicappers had suggested. La Place’s morning line lists Go For Gin, the Kentucky Derby winner who was second in the Preakness, as the 9-5 favorite, with Strodes Creek the second choice at 5-2. Brocco and Tabasco Cat are next at 3-1, which makes sense to Winick.

The field, in post-position order, with jockeys and odds: Go For Gin, Chris McCarron, 9-5; Tabasco Cat, Pat Day, 3-1; Signal Tap, Jose Santos, 20-1; Amathos, Mike Smith, 15-1; Ulises, Craig Perret, 30-1; Strodes Creek, Jerry Bailey, 5-2, and Brocco, Gary Stevens, 3-1. All carry 126 pounds.

Since the Breeders’ Cup started in 1984, no Juvenile winner has won a Triple Crown race, a string of 29 races. And since 1919, when Sir Barton became the first of 11 horses to sweep the Triple Crown, no horse that started in the first leg of the series has won the Belmont without a race in between.

Winick is unfazed by these statistics. “I can’t worry about the stats,” he said. “All I know is that my horse has done very well since he’s been here. He’s eating good and feeling really well. If we’d have run him in the Preakness, I don’t think I’d have the same horse now. There are some wide turns on this track. The way this horse strides out, he should appreciate them.”