Stephens Still Can Talk With the Best of ‘Em

In a foregone conclusion, Woody Stephens sent his last two horses to another barn at Belmont Park last week, ending a 61-year career as a trainer.

Stephens, 84, unofficially announced his exit from the game in June, a few days before the Belmont Stakes. Stephens hadn’t started a horse in the Belmont in a decade, but as long as he was around it was de rigueur to stop by. Starting with Conquistador Cielo in 1982, Stephens won the Belmont five consecutive years, an achievement that is more eye-popping now than it was when Danzig Connection completed the streak in 1986. Stephens was already in the Racing Hall of Fame, having been elected in 1976, but those five Belmonts gave his resume an embroidery like nobody else’s.

Repeat visitors to Barn 3 at Belmont could fairly predict what Stephens might say, but went anyway, to delight in the ageless twinkle in his eye, to count the furrows on his face, and to find out what time it was. No one escaped from Stephens’ barn office without seeing the gold watch he was given for winning all those Belmonts.

About 99% of what he’d say would be about himself and his horses; he’d save a crumb or two for the opposition, just as soon tweaking his foes along the way, to make sure they were paying attention. At the latest Belmont, Stephens was traveling with a portable oxygen tank, a necessity because of a bad case of emphysema. It is a most serviceable unit; Stephens preserved his longest streak, of never having ended an interview prematurely.

“That horse [Silver Charm] is a very game colt,” Stephens said in June. “He’s got a top rider [Gary Stevens]. I think he can win [he didn’t], but I still don’t see any 3-year-olds out there that could beat Conquistador Cielo. There are no Swales in there, either. Silver Charm’s won the first two [the Kentucky Derby and Preakness], but the Derby wasn’t a real strong field.”

Conquistador Cielo, a 14 1/2-length winner, and the ill-fated Swale, in 1984, were Stephens’ best Belmont horses. The others--Caveat (1983), Creme Fraiche (1985) and Danzig Connection--were the right horses for the right day, and the year Creme Fraiche won, Stephens played it safe by also saddling Stephan’s Odyssey, who finished second, beaten by only a half-length. As the Stephens horses battled to the wire, clear of the rest of the field, their trainer stood beside Henryk deKwiatkowski, the owner of Stephan’s Odyssey, cheering the finish.

DeKwiatkowski thought his horse had won. “We did it!” he shouted.

“Sorry, Henryk,” Stephens said. “You better go over and congratulate Mrs. [Elizabeth] Moran.”

That might have been the year that Stephens, responding to the crowd as he reached the winner’s circle, took off his hat and sailed it into the grandstand.

“Woody,” a friend said, “that’s a $100 hat.”

“They all are,” Stephens said. “But I only wear ‘em once, anyway.”

It was definitely a year that Stephens sent a ration of champagne to the press box, which was a ritual after every one of his Belmont wins. The brand was Dom Perignon, nothing but the finest, and Stephens made sure he signed the name of his owner on the caterer’s check.

Blips along the way were the death of Swale, who succumbed of unknown causes eight days after his Belmont win, collapsing along the shedrow while Stephens sat outside in his car, reading a newspaper; and in 1988 the feud with the late Gene Klein, whose Kentucky Derby-winning filly, Winning Colors, was knocked around in the Preakness by Stephens’ Forty Niner.

An incensed Klein accused Stephens of sending out jockey Pat Day to sabotage Winning Colors at any cost. While the filly and Forty Niner fought their own private battle, Risen Star was the winner at Pimlico.

“Woody Stephens has gone from a Hall of Fame trainer to a hall of shame trainer,” Klein said.

Three weeks after that Preakness, Stephens didn’t win another Belmont, but neither did Winning Colors, who finished last.

“She got beat by about 41 lengths,” an unrepentant Stephens said at this year’s Belmont. “Made me feel good. We used to call him cryin’ Klein back then. Guys like Wayne Lukas [Winning Colors’ trainer] and Charlie Whittingham told me later, ‘Woody, you didn’t do anything.’ ”

Any regrets?

“I haven’t thought about it three times, since then,” Stephens said.

A hardboot who was breaking yearlings for a banker in Midway, Ky., when he was 13, Stephens twice won the Kentucky Derby, with Swale and 10 years before that with Cannonade, in the centennial running of the race. In 1974, the year of Cannonade, Stephens thought Judger was the best 3-year-old in his barn, but he finished eighth at Churchill Downs.

His best horse, Stephens has always said, was an undefeated colt who ran only three times. It was one of the saddest days of his life when Stephens, in 1980, told Seth Hancock of Claiborne Farm that Danzig’s knees were too bad for them to run him anymore.

Before Danzig’s first race, as a 2-year-old, Stephens was talking with LeRoy Jolley, the trainer of another horse, in the paddock.

“I’ve got a real good horse in here,” Jolley said.

“If he’s real good, that means he’ll finish second,” Stephens said.

Horse Racing Notes

Peintre Celebre, Pilsudski and Helissio are the closely bunched favorites for Sunday’s $1.1-million Arc de Triomphe, France’s premier race, which will be run at Longchamp. Starting today there will be betting on the race at Santa Anita and its satellites. Post time is 7:20 a.m. Sunday. Helissio and Pilsudski ran 1-2 in last year’s Arc, then Pilsudski was shipped to Woodbine for his win in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. Peintre Celebre, who might run in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Hollywood Park on Nov. 8, is the winner of the French Derby. . . . Luna Wells, trained by Andre Fabre last year when she ran fifth in the Arc and 10th in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, makes her first start since then in Sunday’s $125,000 Las Palmas Handicap. Corey Nakatani will ride for Richard Mandella, who took over the training of Luna Wells after the filly was sold. A back injury has kept Luna Wells on the sidelines. She’ll carry high weight of 119 pounds in the 1 1/8-mile Las Palmas, which drew eight other grass runners, including Radu Cool and Auriette, who are both at 118 pounds.