Now He’s Doubly Charismatic

They are the couple from Camelot, the answer to those who are skeptical that good things happen to good people.

They have been married for nearly 52 years, look as healthy and vital today as they did in the years in which they built their first business into a highly lucrative endeavor, and are still doting on family and friends like two people who have no sense whatsoever that they are the special ones.

Tim Smith, commissioner of the National Thoroughbred Racing Assn., calls them a “cure for a bad mood.”

In fact, because Bob and Beverly Lewis are too good to be true, those who know them well--and especially those who have known them before they embarked on a second career of owning thoroughbred race horses--become the object of queries by the press. Are they really like that? Has something happened to change them?

Well, they are like that and haven’t changed a bit. So now that the Newport Beach/Camelot Lewises have a second shot in the last three years at racing’s Triple Crown, America’s sports fans get another dose of warm and fuzzy.

In 1997, they gave us Silver Charm, the horse named appropriately for its hue and a horse that refused to be beaten when it saw who was trying to beat it. Unfortunately, it didn’t see Touch Gold and Chris McCarron sneaking up on it on the outside in the Belmont and so the third jewel in the crown was missed by a neck.

After that one, the Lewises shook all the right hands, congratulated all the right people, met the press with a smile and said that they were blessed to have won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness that year. Fittingly, America was charmed.

Now, they are back with another aptly named horse, for it is a Lewis brand of charisma that adds a special element to the 1999 run for a Triple Crown. If Charismatic can do it on June 5 at the Belmont, something that hasn’t been done since 1978 with Affirmed, it will be a feel-good sports story like few before.

Indeed, it was fitting that, on a day when a fan, either inebriated or idiotic or both, ran out onto the track in front of a charging field of horses in an earlier race, the story of Charismatic winning the Preakness got the positive back to the forefront.

*

By noon, the crowd at Pimlico has already swelled to beyond 100,000. It is bright and sunny, a little wispy wind, a fine day to put memories of an Eastern winter behind. The infield is packed and so is the dining area where the Lewises fuss over friends and family and find ways to divert their jitters. Bob says he doesn’t get nervous, Beverly says she does and hints that Bob may not be entirely forthcoming on the subject.

The banter is fun, easy. Beverly talks about how Charismatic has had a change of personality since his newfound celebrity as a Kentucky Derby winner. Bob says his horse now carries himself with “professionalism, sophistication and self-confidence.”

That raises the question of how one eats oats with sophistication, but on Preakness day, Preakness horses do, indeed, take on human characteristics.

Bob talks about the precision of instructions that trainer Wayne Lukas gave to jockey Chris Antley before the Kentucky Derby: “He told him to look for the red brick of the kitchen on the backstretch,” Lewis says, “and to send the horse sprinting to the front the moment he picks up the red brick out of the corner of his right eye.”

He talks again about how the Preakness pressure for him is vastly different than it might be if Lukas hadn’t told him, well before even the Derby, that Charismatic, while he might have trouble in the Derby and Preakness, was a horse ready made for the longer (1 1/2 miles) Belmont. Without being cocky, Lewis’ implication was that the Preakness might be the tougher one.

He reminisces about the good fortune that has followed him in life, starting with a Budweiser distributorship in Pomona that he built into great wealth after years of driving the beer truck himself. Then, in 1990, he eased himself and his wife into the racing business, had two early failures, and decided to keep after it until he got it right. And he got it right very quickly. He and Beverly have now won two Kentucky Derbies, two Preaknesses and have shared ownership in Timber Country, a third Preakness winner.

“I would guess, in these 10 years,” Lewis says, “That we have spent $25 million on racing. I suspect that we have also taken in about that same amount in winnings, plus we now have a very nice inventory of brood mares and running horses. In many ways, the way we have built this is no different than the beer business, or real estate.”

As race time gets closer, Lewis points to the little house in the middle of the Pimlico infield, with the little white porch where the winning owner, trainer and jockey, along with family and friends, get to celebrate and pose for the thousands of trophy pictures and handshake shots that get snapped, while ABC interviews all.

“See the ladder on the top of the house, and the cupola [jockey figurine],” he says. “Well, when a horse wins the Preakness, they immediately send a painter up the ladder and, even while the TV interviews are still going and all the trophy presentations, he repaints the colors of the winning horse.

“When Silver Charm won in 1997, and they painted our gold and green colors, Beverly noticed that they had missed one of the uniform rings, so they had to go back up and finish the job.

“It sure would be nice to see our colors up there again, and I’m sure Beverly would check to see if they did it right.”

*

The horses do a different sort of pre-race parade at the Preakness. Their paddock is directly across from the grandstand, in an area of thick grass and wide-open spaces. Some 45 minutes before this famous race, it is eerily quiet as the most expensive, talented race horses in the world circle slowly and quietly, near yellow signs that list their names and saddle numbers.

Lukas is the last on the scene with his two horses, Charismatic and Cat Thief. The other horses are saddled right there in the long grass adjacent to the track. Lukas, claiming skittishness on the part of Cat Thief, saddles his horses in the barn and shows up, 15 minutes before race time, looking more ready to go than the others.

A little gamesmanship?

Jeff Lewis, Bob and Beverly’s son, talks about the unique nature of what is about to occur.

“This isn’t like the NBA finals or the Super Bowl,” he says. “There, you know you are going to get two or three hours, and you can ease into the drama. Here, it all happens in two minutes. It’s some of the most intense drama and emotion you can imagine.”

The clock ticks closer to race time and things start to become a blur. Bob Lewis listens to ABC’s Al Michaels through a headphone and answers questions, looking off into the distance like a man talking to himself. There is a TV presence everywhere, with nervous producers darting about and pushy cameramen jockeying for their angles and Leslie Visser an ever-present splash of red.

There is the march back across the track to the seating, the horses at the gate, the charge down the main stretch that never ceases to impress in its power and speed. And there is the long look to the backstretch, where Charismatic, who has the public’s heart because of his Derby victory while lacking the bettors’ respect with his 8-1 departure from the gate, dawdles in 10th place.

“At that point, my heart just sank,” Bob Lewis would say later.

But like something shot from a slingshot, Charismatic comes off the last turn from the outside and simply gobbles up the field. In the Lewis seats, there is sudden excitement, then a collective breath-holding that waits for another McCarron and Touch Gold, and then jubilation as the onetime claiming horse flat-out demolishes the rest of the 13-horse field.

The blur continues across the track, to the little white porch with the cupola on top. There are photographers screaming for trophies to be held up, microphones poked at important faces and nonstop hugs and handshakes.

The Lewises glow. They wanted this, but, somewhere deep down, they didn’t expect it. After all, is it realistic--even fair--to expect another Triple Crown try two years after the first one?

Before the TV cameras come back live from a commercial, Lewis puts his arm around Antley and says, “Chris, you were made for this horse.” Then he adds, beaming widely, “I think we’ll go to New York [to the Belmont]. I’ll even pay your way.”

Everybody laughs. A fine time is being had by all.

Later, on the way back toward the main grandstand for more interviews and celebration, Beverly Lewis turns and appears to look toward the cupola. No orders seem forthcoming.

All is well in Camelot again. Not to mention horse racing.