SIGNS FROM ABOVE

Good omens, bad omens, Arthur B. Hancock III has a million of them.

Sunday Silence, according to Hancock, might not have swept the 1989 Triple Crown because the colt’s owner saw only two moths, not three, on a top-floor window at the World Trade Center in New York the night before the Belmont Stakes.

Sunday Silence, Hancock suggests, might have won the Kentucky Derby that year because he found a penny--minted in 1982--on the backstretch at Churchill Downs a couple of days before the race. Gato Del Sol, owned in a partnership that included Hancock, had won the Derby in 1982.

The Hancock omens go on and on.

Just before the Blue Grass Stakes last month, a bird dumped on Hancock’s shoulder in the Keeneland paddock. In what smacks of an old wives’ tale, Hancock considers getting hit by a bird to be good luck. It’s difficult to argue with the Kentucky breeder: Menifee won the Blue Grass by 1 1/4 lengths.

(Try foisting that bird-drop good-luck theory off on John Mabee. Shortly before this year’s Kentucky Derby, Mabee stepped out from underneath the shedrow at Churchill Downs and was nailed by a dirty bird. Mabee’s horses, Excellent Meeting and General Challenge, finished fifth and 11th, respectively, in the Derby).

Menifee, second by a neck to Charismatic in the Derby, is the 5-2 morning-line favorite today at Pimlico, where the 124th Preakness, the middle leg of the Triple Crown, will be run. Shortly before the race, you might find Hancock in the parking lot, looking for a lucky penny or trying to find a bird he can stand under.

Hancock’s accounts of his many omens are so persistent that even Bob Lewis, the co-owner--with his wife Beverly--of Charismatic, is becoming a convert. The Lewises, from Newport Beach, are not a particularly superstitious couple, but on Thursday, at a Preakness ritual known as “the alibi breakfast,” there was Bob Lewis, talking about how losing teeth was a good sign during Silver Charm’s Triple Crown run in 1997, and going on to explain how he had had emergency dental work again two weeks ago, a few hours before Charismatic won the Derby.

But Arthur Hancock’s birds and Bob Lewis’ teeth will not settle this Preakness. Racing luck, as it did in the Derby, may once more help determine the winner, because even 12 horses--with the scratch of Silverbulletday and the expected scratch of Vicar--are a crowd over a Pimlico racing layout known for its tight turns.

Another thing: The Preakness is run at 1 3/16 miles, which is 110 yards shorter than the Derby. Horses like Menifee, who was 15th with half a mile left at Churchill Downs, need to be closer early today. For Hancock, his partner Jimmy Stone and their trainer, Elliott Walden, no one is more equal to the Preakness task than jockey Pat Day, who won three in a row here in the 1990s and has won five overall.

Walden, who’s only 36, has already become a familiar--if tragic--Triple Crown figure. He won last year’s Belmont Stakes with Victory Gallop, spoiling Real Quiet’s Triple Crown bid, but has been second in the last two Derbies, with Victory Gallop and Menifee, horses that might have won with better trips. Victory Gallop was also second to Real Quiet in last year’s Preakness.

In this year’s Derby, Menifee was 14th, almost eight lengths back, with a quarter-mile to run.

“He ran his heart out,” Hancock said.

Hancock, the onetime prodigal son of the legendary Bull Hancock of Claiborne Farm, is no longer a wastrel. He runs Stone Farm--it’s not named after Jimmy Stone--near Paris, Ky., and is known as a breeder of good horses. Last year, Hancock and two partners sold a Mr. Prospector colt at Keeneland for $4 million, the highest price for a yearling since 1985.

Hancock also bred Menifee, through a mating of Harlan and the mare Anne Campbell. Much as he’d done with the unraced Sunday Silence, Hancock tried to sell Menifee, but wound up owning 50% of him.

Stone, a 74-year-old New Orleans gas-drilling executive who has known Hancock since the Kentuckian was a child, bought Menifee as a yearling for $36,000. Hancock, taken by the colt, asked to buy in, and Stone made him an equal partner.

Named after a Kentucky county, 130 miles from Churchill Downs, that has only 5,387 people, Menifee was undefeated in two starts last year, but his 2-year-old season ended in August when he underwent arthroscopic surgery for a chipped knee.

This year, Menifee won his first start, at Gulfstream Park in February, shook off a second-place finish in the Tampa Bay Derby as a 2-5 favorite, won the Blue Grass, and might have been best in the Kentucky Derby. He had the 18th post at Churchill Downs, inside only one horse, but has drawn much better--No. 5--today.

“We got shuffled back going into the first turn in the Derby,” Walden said. “We were back farther than what we wanted to be. Then the colt was very game through the stretch. He was still running after he passed a lot of horses. If he runs back to his Derby, he should be tough.”

Hancock was saddened in February when the sire Harlan, who was also named after a county in Kentucky, died at 10. The stallion, stricken with a ruptured aorta in the breeding shed, was dead when he hit the ground.

On the track, Harlan had his moments, winning eight races, among them the Vosburgh Stakes in New York. Menifee, one of his last offspring, may be his best.

Horse Racing Notes

There will be a fast track for the Preakness for the seventh consecutive year, with temperatures possibly reaching the low 70s. . . . Trainer Bob Baffert testified as a character witness for Ed Musselman, the publisher of an irreverent Kentucky newsletter, but a circuit-court jury found in favor of plaintiff Donald “Hee Haw” Alvey in a defamation suit. Alvey, a bloodstock agent and professional gambler, was awarded $75,000 after the jury agreed that Musselman’s published comments were untrue and defamatory. Alvey had sought $200,000 in damages. Musselman’s newsletter is called “Indian Charlie.” Baffert’s horse, Indian Charlie, won last year’s Santa Anita Derby before finishing third as the Kentucky Derby favorite. . . . The Arkansas Racing Commission will hear an appeal May 24 from jockey Billy Patin, who was suspended from racing for a year after a ruling that he carried an illegal electrical device when he rode Valhol to victory in the Arkansas Derby.

PREAKNESS STAKES

TRUE TO FORM: Silverbulletday is an easy winner in the Black-Eyed Susan. Page 10

THE LUCKY 13: A look at the 13-horse field for the 124th Preakness. Page 10