HORSE RACING / BILL CHRISTINE : Is Cordero Issue One More Case of Sport’s Blinders?

The maxim that good horses bring good crowds was knocked into a cocked hat Saturday, when Belmont Park put on what was expected to be the best non-Breeders’ Cup day of the year.

The New York track offered an attractive card that included six Breeders’ Cup prep races worth $2.45 million. One pitted Cigar, the favorite for horse of the year, against Thunder Gulch, the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner. Another was a matchup between Heavenly Prize and Serena’s Song, the country’s best fillies.

In dry, 60-degree weather, fewer than 16,000 spectators attended. Sure, it’s a different game now that off-track and telephone betting and simulcasting have cluttered the landscape, but 15,447 rattling around sprawling Belmont is just another sad commentary on racing.

As the bastions of New York and California go, so go the sport, and, at Santa Anita on Saturday there were only 17,500 spectators for some other Breeders’ Cup warm-ups and off-track betting on the Belmont races.

Belmont Park said no thanks several weeks ago when Angel Cordero, the 52-year-old jockey-turned-trainer, proposed that he be paid a promotional fee for a one-day return to riding. Cordero, who’s in the Racing Hall of Fame, rode most of his 7,057 winners in New York in a career that ended when he suffered multiple injuries in a four-horse spill at Aqueduct in January of 1992.

“I like Angel,” said Kenny Noe, president of the New York Racing Assn., in a story in the New York Times in August. “We could bring back a lot of riders. I have told Angel, ‘Look, you’re a friend of mine. Suppose you go out and fall off the horse. Do you want that on my conscience? Or what would you gain ending your career this time with a horse that finishes 10th?’ ”

Whether Noe likes it or not, Cordero will be riding, sans promotion fee, at Belmont Park on Saturday, and he isn’t planning on running 10th. He’ll be aboard Rogues Walk, the filly who has given him some of the few stakes victories he has had as a trainer, and three or four other horses.

Cordero did a warm-up for Saturday on Oct. 1, when he went home to Puerto Rico to ride at El Comandante Race Track. That is where a very young Cordero groomed horses for his father, a jockey who became a trainer, and where he rode his first winner in 1960. Paid an appearance fee by El Comandante--he gave half of his day’s earnings to the local Red Cross for those left homeless because of Hurricane Luis--Cordero rode Bandit Bomber, a two-time Puerto Rican champion, to a 12 1/4-length win.

A crowd of more than 6,000 watched. That might not seem like much at first glance, but an El Comandante official said Wednesday that the track’s average crowd on Sunday afternoons is 2,000. Belmont Park could use a turnstile transfusion like that, especially when head-to-head showdowns with top horses don’t seem to be enough of a lure.

For years, Louis Wolfson has blamed tracks for not promoting jockeys enough. Wolfson and his wife, Patrice, raced Affirmed, who won the Triple Crown in 1978, the most recent horse to win it.

“I was in New York for the races one Saturday [several years ago],” Wolfson said, “and [Bill] Shoemaker had come in from California to ride on the card. You had to look in the fine print of the newspapers to know that he was going to be there. Here you had one of greatest riders we’ve ever had making a rare appearance, and nobody went out of the way to remind the public.

“Good horses can be a draw, but they are a sometime thing. They go off to stud in a few years. The enduring stars are the jockeys, and they’re the ones the tracks should be showcasing on a regular basis.”

Some have said--and will continue to say--that Cordero’s return is ill-advised. Belmont’s jockeys will privately wonder whether it’s safe to ride against a 52-year-old with an injury-ridden body who hasn’t competed in more than three years.

Being on the track with Cordero was always a risk, even when he was much more fit than he is now. His approach was to ride at least three horses in every race--his own and any others that might get in the way.

But it isn’t as though Cordero, almost 53, has been at home doing needlepoint since his 1992 spill. He has been exercising many of the 20 horses he trains on a daily basis, he works out with a personal physical-fitness trainer on a regular basis and his weight is under 115 pounds.

What this is all about is a prelude to his riding in one more Breeders’ Cup, at Belmont Park on Oct. 28. Cordero has won four Breeders’ Cup races, but none since 1989, and he thirsts for one more chance. The trainers know what they’re getting, and so do the bettors and rival jockeys. Rogues Walk might be at least one mount for him, in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. After Oct. 28, he won’t bother us again, except as a trainer trying to win as many races as he can.

Horse Racing Notes

Larry The Legend, sidelined since winning the Santa Anita Derby in April, will undergo surgery Sunday to have a chip removed from his left knee. An operation in April removed two chips from the same knee. “I’m told that there’s a reasonable chance for a full recovery,” trainer Craig Lewis said. . . . Chris Antley, who underwent surgery for a torn rotator cuff, is scheduled to resume riding in late October. Antley hasn’t ridden since Sept. 4. . . . Gary Stevens, who has returned to New York to ride this week, will have at least five mounts in the Breeders’ Cup: Serena’s Song in the Distaff, Celtic Arms in the Turf, Fastness in the Mile, Golden Attraction in the Juvenile Fillies, and either Editor’s Note, Hennessy or Honour And Glory in the Juvenile. Stevens also expects to have another mount in the Classic now that Thunder Gulch has been retired. . . . Lit De Justice will run in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. . . . The three-way jockey battle continues for the national money title. Through Sunday, Corey Nakatani has $12.5 million in purses, followed by Jerry Bailey with $12.2 million and Stevens with $11.7 million. . . . Alex Ingle, former treasurer at Santa Anita, has been named chief financial officer for the New York Racing Assn.