Fever Sidelines Timber Country : Belmont Stakes: Thunder Gulch becomes favorite, Lukas’ only hope for record victory.

Timber Country, winner of the Preakness and the 6-5 favorite for today’s Belmont Stakes, was knocked out of the final Triple Crown race Friday after he came down with a 104-degree fever.

When Timber Country was scratched, trainer Wayne Lukas’ chances of winning a record-setting fifth consecutive Triple Crown race were reduced more than 50%, even though he has Thunder Gulch, the Kentucky Derby winner, still running in the Belmont.

Thunder Gulch, at 2-1, was the second choice behind his stablemate on the morning line, but Lukas concedes that the grueling 1 1/2-mile distance will be more of a stamina test for him than it would be for Timber Country.

Timber Country’s illness is not serious, and in fact Lukas checked the colt’s status at his Belmont Park barn at 10 p.m. Friday and found that the temperature was almost normal.

“He was at 100.7, just a few ticks above normal [100 degrees],” Lukas said. “This is just one of those 24-hour or 48-hour deals, and he should miss very little training time. It just came at the wrong time. A race this important, and a horse this valuable, we just couldn’t take the chance.”

At about 3 p.m. Friday, Timber Country’s handlers noticed that the horse hadn’t finished his feed. His temperature was taken and it read more than 103 degrees.

A decision was made to monitor the temperature without giving Timber Country any medication. Fevers are usually treated with phenylbutazone, an analgesic that is permitted for racing in all states but New York.

When Lukas returned to barn about 5 p.m., after saddling Serena’s Song for her victory in the Mother Goose Stakes, Timber Country’s temperature had risen to 104 degrees.

“We started giving him bute then,” Lukas said, “and that in effect took us out of the race, because we had lost all our options. The bute would have shown up in a post-race test. But by then we probably wouldn’t have run him, anyhow, even if we had been running in a state that allows bute. His temperature has since gone down, but I still think we’ve done the right thing.”

Timber Country, last year’s champion 2-year-old male but winless this year until the Preakness, ran third in the Kentucky Derby, finishing 2 1/2 lengths behind Thunder Gulch. Timber Country won the Preakness by half a length over Oliver’s Twist, who isn’t running in the Belmont, while Thunder Gulch ran third, beaten by three-quarters of a length.

Lukas is trying to become the first trainer to sweep the Triple Crown races in the same year with different horses. He won last year’s Preakness and Belmont with Tabasco Cat, then won the first two races in the series this year to tie the record of four in a row set by Lucien Lauren, who won the 1972 Belmont with Riva Ridge and the three 1973 Triple Crown races with Secretariat.

“We’ll still give it a shot,” Lukas said, “but I would have felt a lot better with both horses in there. We’ll take the mandatory eight-count and get back in there. We’ll take Mighty Mouse over there and see what he does.”

Timber Country has five victories, one second and four thirds in 12 starts and has earned $1.5 million. Thunder Gulch, with $1.4 million in earnings, has five victories, two seconds and two thirds in 11 starts. Thunder Gulch is now the only horse who will run in all three Triple Crown races this year.

The loss of Timber Country reduces the Belmont field to 11 horses and is also a severe blow for Belmont Park’s management, which would have had a drab race on its hands without the Lukas horses. Track officials were circumspect about estimating the attendance, which may drop below 40,000 for the first time in modern Belmont Stakes history. Timber Country is the biggest last-minute Belmont scratch since Personality, also the Preakness winner, was taken out of the race after being entered in 1970. Last year, Brocco, the Santa Anita Derby winner, was scratched from the Belmont when he suffered a stone bruise the day before the race.

Lukas probably will proceed with his earlier plans after the Belmont: keeping Timber Country in the East for a campaign that would lead to the Travers Stakes at Saratoga in August, and shipping Thunder Gulch back to California with the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar in mind.

By default, Star Standard becomes the second choice behind Thunder Gulch in the Belmont, and Citadeed will probably be the third choice. The others running are Off’n’Away, Pana Brass, Is Sveikatas, Ave’s Flag, Composer, Wild Syn, Colonial Secretary and Knockadoon.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

THE FIELD

PP Horse Jockey Odds 1. Citadeed Maple 8 2. Off’n’away Smith 12 3. Pana Brass Ramos 50 4. Is Sveikatas Chavez 50 5. Ave’s Flag Velasquez 30 6. Composer Bailey 20 7. Wild Syn Romero 20 8. Colonial Secretary Santos 50 9. Knockadoon McCarron 15 10. Thunder Gulch Stevens 2 11. Timber Country SCRATCHED 12. Star Standard Krone 6

* Weights: 126 pounds