THOROUGHBRED RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Gary Stevens Is King Kong in Hong Kong

When Bill Hartack, already a member of the Hall of Fame, went to Hong Kong to ride in the early 1970s, it was because of weight and, some thought, the United States revenuers might have been at his door. The five-time winner of the Kentucky Derby was 42 when he left, and no longer commanded the top stock.

Gary Stevens had no such problems when he said goodby Santa Anita, hello Sha Tin, this week. Stevens is still a month from 32, and although his battered body is held together by screws, rods and other surgical devices, he is fit and riding as well as ever in a career that will also send him to the Hall of Fame.

Wound tight since the day he walked in at Santa Anita more than a decade ago, the combative Stevens is going to Hong Kong for a lucrative 4 1/2-month breather. He will be paid handsomely--much more than Hartack--for riding only two days a week. In between, he’ll help care for the horses, something he did for his father, a trainer in Idaho, more than 20 years ago.

Already, turf writers from California to New York are missing him. After a race, whether his horse won or lost, he would take you stride by stride through all 1 1/4 miles. The Hong Kong dailies may have to throw out the cricket scores to make space for Stevens.

And he’s as good under fire as he is from the catbird seat. In 1988, a few days before the Belmont Stakes, my hotel telephone rang in New York about 2 o’clock in the morning.

“I shot a round of golf today like I’ve never shot,” said Stevens, 2,500 miles away. “It’s been a great day off, and then you called to ruin it. Well, here I am.”

Stevens’ agent at the time, Ron Franklin, had told him about my conversation with Woody Stephens, the wily trainer who was introducing an intimidation factor into the running of the Belmont.

After winning the Kentucky Derby astride the filly Winning Colors, Gary’s mount and Woody’s horse, Forty Niner, had had a bump-and-run encounter at Pimlico, where Risen Star won the Preakness while their horses paid the penalty for a roughhouse game of cat and mouse.

Predictably, Stephens exonerated his jockey, Pat Day, fingered Stevens as the culprit and went on to say that he would be telling off the California rider in the paddock before the Belmont.

“I respect Mr. Stephens as a horseman, and for all he’s accomplished,” Gary Stevens said on the phone at 2 a.m. “But I don’t respect him for what they tried to do to my filly at Pimlico.”

Neither Winning Colors nor Cefis, Woody Stephens’ colt, won the Belmont. Risen Star added his second Triple Crown victory, and I can’t remember that the trainer went after the jockey in the paddock. Much ado about nothing was once again the order of the day.

I hope Stevens hurries back from Hong Kong, finishes the year here and then makes another bid in 1996 for the Eclipse Award he has never won. In 1990, he looked like a cinch for the award, riding horses that earned $13.8 million. He even capped the year with his first victory in a Breeders’ Cup race.

Getting bad advice and confident all the way to the fitting room, Stevens bought a tuxedo and made plans to attend the awards dinner at a fancy hotel in San Francisco. Then the vote came in and the winner was Craig Perret, who was a distant third on the money list with $11.7 million.

The bitterness didn’t go away overnight. Not long afterward, Stevens scuffled with a turf writer at a bowling alley near Santa Anita. The weights for the abbreviated brawl were at least 2-1, in favor of the journalist, but the odds were 1-10, Stevens. A bystander pulled the jockey away before it really got nasty.

On another day, the battlers shook hands and agreed to forget.

Stevens probably deserved an Eclipse Award just for his Derby ride aboard Winning Colors. The filly had won the Santa Anita Derby, but she wasn’t expected to last the 1 1/4 miles at Churchill Downs.

Natural speed was the biggest asset Winning Colors had, and when the trainers of the other horses hemmed and hawed all week about not wanting to jeopardize their chances by challenging her for the lead, Stevens and trainer Wayne Lukas knew what to do. They sent Winning Colors winging, and with a 3 1/2-length lead at the eighth pole, she hung on by a neck, becoming only the third distaff winner of the race.

Finishing second was Woody Stephens’ Forty Niner. That set up the disappointing rematch in the Preakness two weeks later, and then the Belmont Park paddock showdown that never happened three weeks after that.

Horse Racing Notes

Dare And Go, who would have been ridden by Gary Stevens, gets a new jockey, as yet unspecified, Sunday for the $500,000 Strub Stakes. The rider situation is also unclear for Colonel Collins and College Town, who are other probables. They had sharp workouts Thursday, Colonel Collins going half a mile in :46 1/5 and Dramatic Gold five furlongs in :59 3/5. Favored Wekiva Springs and Strodes Creek round out the six-horse field, which will be the smallest for the Strub since Alysheba beat five opponents in 1988. . . . With a noon post for the first race, the Strub will be the fifth race on the card.

Paseana, who worked five-eighths Thursday in :59 3/5, is expected to make her comeback Sunday in the $150,000 Santa Maria Handicap. The 8-year-old mare won the stake in 1992, then finished second the next two years. . . . Saturday’s $200,000 La Canada Stakes, for 4-year-old fillies, has drawn Top Rung, Klassy Kim and Twice The Vice, plus Cabo Queen, Incurable Romantic and Dianes Halo. Alex Solis is Stevens’ replacement on Top Rung, who won the La Brea on Dec. 28. Favored both times, Twice The Vice ran third that day and was second behind Klassy Kim in the El Encino on Jan. 15.

Slew Of Damascus, second to Del Mar Dennis in the San Pasqual Handicap, will try again in the San Antonio Handicap on Feb. 12. . . . Corey Nakatani has appealed a stewards’ five-day suspension that was scheduled to start Saturday. . . . American Day, an easy winner Wednesday after finishing far back as the favorite in the slop at Bay Meadows, is a probable for the San Rafael on March 4.