Rivals Put Cards on Training Table

Just as there are 1,000 ways to lose a race, there are myriad ways to train a racehorse. Two of those training regimens are up for review in today’s running of the 133rd Belmont Stakes, with trainers Bob Baffert and John Ward apparently at loggerheads over which of their methods works better.

The debate could be settled a few minutes after 3 p.m. PDT, after the Baffert-trained Point Given and Ward’s Monarchos have run the Belmont, which at 1 1/2 miles is the last and most demanding of the Triple Crown races.

Neither Baffert nor Ward has won the Belmont--Ward has never run a horse in the race and Baffert has been second twice in four starts--but they are strongly opinionated about the way to bring a horse into the race.

After Kentucky Derby winner Monarchos had slumped to sixth place in the Preakness, Ward shipped him directly to Belmont Park. By contrast, Point Given, fifth in the Derby but a convincing winner of the Preakness, did all of his serious work for the Belmont at Churchill Downs, not arriving in Elmont until Wednesday.

“You need to have the horses here to train over the mile-and-a-half oval so they can get used to it,” Ward said. “Anybody who has not trained here for this race over a long period of time is at a serious disadvantage.”

Ward’s remarks were not lost on Baffert.

“I guess [the late arrival with Point Given] is my out if we get beat,” Baffert said. “It just boils down to this: If a horse is doing well, he should run well here. If my horse picks up the horses in front of him the way I think he will in this race, we won’t have to blame the track, the post position or shipping in at the last minute.”

Point and counterpoint.

Ward blamed the track after Monarchos was beaten by 7 1/2 lengths in the Preakness. In analyzing the race, he also put some of the onus on his jockey, Jorge Chavez.

“My horse likes a harder, faster surface, like Churchill Downs [was] and like Belmont Park ought to be,” Ward said. “At Pimlico, [Chavez] made a mistake when he took back with his horse leaving the gate. We were dead meat from there on.”

Whatever the arguments between the trainers of Monarchos and Point Given, however, this Belmont should not be misconstrued as a two-horse race. In the nine-horse field, there are two others--A P Valentine and Dollar Bill--that have danced all the Triple Crown dances. There are three horses--Balto Star, Invisible Ink and Thunder Blitz--that ran in the Derby and skipped the Preakness. And there are two new shooters--Buckle Down Ben and Dr Greenfield, the shipper from England who will be running in the U.S. for the first time.

Some say that the only throw-out in the lot is Buckle Down Ben, who won the Laurel Futurity last year but has had trouble competing against top company this year. Trainer Wayne Lukas, who has won the Belmont four times, admits his horse is in on a pass.

“We don’t have any grandiose ideas,” he said. “If we’re dangerous, it’s because we’ve been there. The four Belmonts I’ve won were horses that weren’t fancied by the press or the public, either. Buckle Down Ben will be 80-1 or something, so the pressure’s off. Hell, there’s so little pressure that I might go to the Belmont Ball and dance with [New York socialite] Marylou Whitney.”

The pressure applies to the camps of Point Given, the 8-5 favorite, and Monarchos, the 5-2 second choice. It extends to trainer Nick Zito, the New Yorker who’s hoping that A P Valentine, a colt with an estimated $16-million breeding syndication price tag hanging over his head, can rid him of his 0-for-10 schneid in the Belmont. It includes jockey Pat Day, who owes the hard-luck Dollar Bill one clean trip after a succession of troubled races.

“Pat thought after the Preakness that maybe he just wasn’t a good fit for our horse,” said Dallas Stewart, the former Lukas assistant who trains Dollar Bill. “But I just let that go over my head. Can we win? I’d like to say yes, but all I’m hoping for is just a better chance to win.”

Besides the Belmont, Zito has also never won the Travers, Saratoga’s midsummer sequel to the Triple Crown.

“This is where I’ve learned my trade, so naturally I’d like to win one of these races,” Zito said.

Zito has won the Derby twice and the Preakness once, but his best Belmont finishes have been four seconds, by Thirty Six Red (to Go And Go in 1990), Strike The Gold (Hansel, 1991), Go For Gin (Tabasco Cat, 1994) and Star Standard (Thunder Gulch, 1995).

Zito’s dreams predict more frustration today.

“I keep seeing [A P Valentine] running second,” he said. “I don’t know why, but that’s the way it keeps turning out.”

Maybe Zito is dreaming the Preakness rerun by mistake. At Pimlico, A P Valentine, after lagging early, made a stretch run to finish second, within 2 1/4 lengths of Point Given.

If size mattered, A P Valentine wouldn’t belong on the same track with Point Given, a 1,250-pound gargantuan.

“My horse isn’t very big,” Zito said. “But he’s got a great big heart. And he’s got a big price tag and a big pedigree [by A.P. Indy, the 1992 Belmont winner, out of Twenty Eight Carat, an Alydar mare]. He’s gone through a lot to be in the position he’s in. We’re hungry. That’s what kept Woody Stephens going, on the way to winning five Belmonts. He stayed hungry.”

The forecast is for mostly sunny skies with temperatures in the 78-83-degree range. The crowd is anticipated at 60,000 to 70,000. Among the fans will be former President Bill Clinton. His wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), will present the Belmont trophy to the winning owner.

The oft-rambunctious Point Given galloped 1 3/8 miles Friday without incident.

In other stakes on today’s Belmont card, the probable favorites are Perfect Sting, who’ll be ridden by Chris McCarron, in the $400,000 Manhattan Handicap; License Fee in the $175,000 Just A Game Breeders’ Cup Handicap; Flame Thrower, who’ll face City Zip, Burning Roma and Express Tour in the $150,000 Riva Ridge; and Explicit, with Gary Stevens, who will try to rebound from a Pimlico misadventure in the $150,000 True North Handicap.

Forest Secrets lost the lead to Victory Ride inside the 16th pole Friday, then came on again to win the $200,000 Acorn Stakes at 50-1.

Ridden by Chris McCarron, Forest Secrets is owned by Debby Oxley and trained by Ward, who also trains Monarchos for Oxley’s husband, John.

The Acorn was only Forest Secrets’ third start and her first in a stake. The 3-year-old filly had been first and second in two starts in Kentucky. She paid $102.50, running the mile in 1:34 4/5. Victory Ride, the 7-5 favorite, out-finished Real Cozzy for second place.