Blue ‘Bayou Is a Sad Refrain for Trainer

Tom Bohannan saddled the winners of consecutive Preaknesses in 1992-93 and ran a stable that earned millions of dollars in the early 1990s, but anyone who attended the 1993 Belmont Stakes will remember him more for a few fleeting moments of a tragic June afternoon in New York.

Three weeks after winning the Preakness, and five weeks after running second in the Kentucky Derby, Prairie Bayou went off as favorite in the Belmont Stakes, the last of the Triple Crown series. Running down the backstretch, the colt shattered one of his legs and his jockey, Mike Smith, tried desperately to pull him up.

“Prairie Bayou broke down after going five furlongs,” is what the Daily Racing Form’s chart footnotes have left for posterity, but eight little words are too tidy a wrap-up for that Belmont.

Seeing his horse in distress, Bohannan bolted from his box seat, ran across the stretch run of the main track and began a long run across the sprawling infield of Belmont Park. From the press box, there were more eyes on Bohannan, in his dark business suit, than there were on Colonial Affair winning the race. At 1 1/2 miles, Belmont is the biggest track in the United States, and its infield seems about as big as Rhode Island.

Exhausted, Bohannan finally reached the backstretch, but he was still a distance from Prairie Bayou, who had hobbled toward the start of the far turn before Smith pulled him up. Bohannan climbed on an outrider’s horse and was ridden to the place where Prairie Bayou was breathing his last breaths. The leg was badly broken, beyond repair. There were no other options but euthanasia.

Bohannan, sitting at a concrete table near Del Mar’s track kitchen, smiled weakly as the 1993 Belmont was recalled. He is spending the summer here with a modest string of five horses, one of whom, Sharpest Image, will be running in Sunday’s $300,000 Eddie Read Handicap.

“Yeah, I was running as hard as I could,” he said of his need to reach the stricken Prairie Bayou. “I outran the groom on the way out there. But before I got all the way out there, he had passed me.”

It made no difference who got there first. All that was left for Prairie Bayou was that fatal injection.

The death of Prairie Bayou was more than the loss of a special horse for Bohannan; it seemed to be the start of his free-fall from prominence in racing. He’s not back yet, the small stable here only a cornerstone that he hopes will revive his fortunes.

It’s still hard for Bohannan to talk about the 1993 Belmont.

“That was a pretty bad day,” he said this week. “It was one of those things that sometimes happen in the business.”

The sadness in his voice says that he’d just as soon talk about something else.

Pine Bluff, the winner of the 1992 Preakness, and Prairie Bayou raced for Loblolly Stable, which belonged to Arkansas lumberman John Ed Anthony and his wife. The Anthonys were divorcing at the time of the Triple Crown, and after a dispersal sale of most of their horses, John Ed Anthony resumed racing on a more limited scale.

By the summer of 1994, it was being asked whatever happened to Tom Bohannan.

“I was going through a divorce,” he said. “I needed some time away to sort things out. I sold my house in New York. I left New York and took about four months off. But I was never out of the game. I always intended to come back.”

This year, Bohannan raced at Lone Star Park in Texas. He has won seven races from 68 starters in 1998, and he has come to Del Mar to tiptoe through the waters. His clients include Anthony, Richard Strauss and Ward Williford, the latter two the owners of Sharpest Image. Strauss won the Breeders’ Cup Mile with the Irish-bred colt Last Tycoon at Santa Anita in 1986.

“I haven’t decided what circuit I’m going to follow,” Bohannan said. “I’m not sure of anything, and my plans are tentative. I might go back to Kentucky.”

One of his horses here is Jackson Point, a colt sired by Pine Bluff, who’s having a resurgence as a stallion after the success of offspring Lil’s Lad and I Ain’t Bluffing. Bohannan said that Pine Bluff is the most talented horse he has trained.

Anthony’s new racing name is the Short Leaf Stable.

“Short leaf is actually a kind of pine tree,” Bohannan said. “It’s smaller than most pine, but of high quality. That could be us.”

A small number of horses that can run. That’s one way for a forgotten trainer to find his way back.

Horse Racing Notes

Sharpest Image, winless in three races at Del Mar last year under trainer Jeremy Noseda, will carry 110 pounds in the Eddie Read, 11 fewer than the top-weighted Labeeb. Neil Drysdale, who trains Labeeb, is also running Hawksley Hill, who’s second with 120 pounds. . . . Touch Gold is scheduled to arrive from Kentucky today to prepare for the $1-million Pacific Classic on Aug. 15. . . . Co-owner Bob Lewis indicated that although Silver Charm is back in training, he probably won’t run again this year. “We just might be looking at this winter at Santa Anita,” Lewis said. . . . Jockey Chris Antley’s return is at least weeks away. “He’s going to need some time to take off eight to 10 pounds,” said his agent, Ron Anderson. “He’s been away eight months, and that’s the tough part.”