Close Encounters

He will have no fear of bad news.

His heart is trusting in the Lord.

--In English and Spanish,

on a bulletin board

at trainer Elliott Walden’s

barn at Churchill Downs

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LOUISVILLE, Ky.--In 1998, Elliott Walden, born-again Christian and trainer of Victory Gallop, was the bad news for Real Quiet in the Belmont Stakes.

Second in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, Victory Gallop trailed by 7 1/2 lengths early before catching Real Quiet at the wire before 80,162 at Belmont Park. Shattered was another last-race bid for the Triple Crown, and lost was a $5-million bonus for Real Quiet’s owner, Mike Pegram.

In the late 1990s, there was an epidemic of horses winning the Derby and the Preakness, the opening legs of the Triple Crown, and then failing to punch home the ultimate victory in the Belmont. The names of the near-misses and the horses who foiled them are inseparable: Silver Charm and Touch Gold in 1997; Real Quiet and Victory Gallop in ‘98; and Charismatic and Lemon Drop Kid in ’99.

Eleven horses have swept the series but 15 have won the first two jewels and lost in the Belmont and, worse for racing, three of those 15 missed at a time when the sport thirsts for a megastar. The last Triple Crown champion was Affirmed, in 1978, and with the death of Seattle Slew last month, there isn’t even a Triple Crown titlist living, for the first time since Sir Barton first swept the races in 1919.

All of this history is again required reading, now that War Emblem, racing’s flavor of the month for May, can become the 12th Triple Crown champion Saturday with a victory in the Belmont. The speedy, ill-tempered colt is trained by Bob Baffert, who is as much a part of the Triple Crown as roses at the Kentucky Derby, faux black-eyed susans at the Preakness and white carnations at the Belmont. Baffert has won eight Triple Crown races since 1997, but he was on the bitter receiving end when Touch Gold and Victory Gallop engineered their upsets.

“I might not have won those Belmonts,” Baffert said Tuesday at Churchill Downs, where War Emblem had been training after the Preakness, “but you can’t say that my horses didn’t show up for those races.

“A lot of great horses before mine have gotten this far and not won the Belmont. Spectacular Bid, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, horses like that. You take a look at the 11 horses that have done it, and you see 11 real tough son of a guns.”

Two of the last three Triple Crown near-misses--Silver Charm and Charismatic--were owned by Bob and Beverly Lewis, the most polite couple in Newport Beach. The Lewises had been in racing for six years when they paid $85,000 for Silver Charm, at the urging of Baffert. They later spent $200,000, also a modest price, to acquire Charismatic, who was trained by Wayne Lukas. Bob Lewis took the role of the perfect host to a new level when he chartered jetliners to ferry 100 or so of his best friends from coast to coast for the 1997 and 1999 Belmonts.

The Lewises eventually did win a Belmont, with a horse they had given little chance, when Commendable pulled off an 18-1 upset in 2000. Alas, Commendable had been a bust in the Derby and had not run in the Preakness.

The Lewises didn’t have a Triple Crown horse this year, but they attended the Derby and will be part of what might be a record crowd Saturday in New York.

“Will we be rooting for War Emblem?” Bob Lewis said during a recent interview at his trophy-filled home. “Darn right.”

He has won six Triple Crown races--two Derbies, three Preaknesses and one Belmont--and on the trip home from Kentucky after this year’s Derby he uncrumpled a list of 38 2-year-olds that he and his wife own. The Lewis futures are not in soybeans, they’re in horses. They got big-time Triple Crown fever long ago and, with the money that two beer distributorships have brought, are not likely to seek a cure.

A Very Good Year

Silver Charm was only one of a rock-solid crop of 3-year-olds in 1997. The cream was concentrated in California, where Free House and Silver Charm began butting heads early in the year, and where the late-developing Touch Gold was also based. Joining the mix later would be Captain Bodgit, a hard-knocking, Maryland-based colt who won the Florida Derby and the Wood Memorial.

Free House had beaten Silver Charm twice in three races at Santa Anita, including a narrow victory by a head in the Santa Anita Derby, before the road show began. At the Derby, Silver Charm, favored Captain Bodgit and Free House ran 1-2-3, Silver Charm winning by a head. Beverly Lewis was so taken by the victory that she grew weak-kneed in the winner’s circle.

Two weeks later, at Pimlico, Touch Gold joined the Triple Crown wars. He had won the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland two weeks before the Derby but owner Frank Stronach, agreeing with his trainer, David Hofmans, had skipped the Derby.

At the start of the Preakness, Touch Gold nose-dived, with Chris McCarron miraculously able to avoid falling. The four-horse finish, though, was one of the best. Silver Charm beat Free House by a head, Captain Bodgit was only a head farther back and Touch Gold, who’d reinjured his hoof at the start, was beaten by about 1 1/2 lengths, getting squeezed along the rail through the stretch run.

Captain Bodgit was injured and missed the Belmont three weeks after that as only seven horses showed up in New York. One of them, Wild Rush, Touch Gold’s stablemate, would provide the early pace.

It was touch and go whether Touch Gold would even run. His left front hoof required 24-hour attention.

“We didn’t know what to expect,” Hofmans said. “It got very hairy leading up to the race.”

Several days before the race, though, Touch Gold turned in a solid seven-furlong workout and Hofmans felt better.

With half a mile left in the race, Wild Rush was still on the lead, but the three major players were ready to pounce. Gary Stevens had Silver Charm in second place, then they moved to the lead midway through the far turn. Silver Charm shook off Free House in the upper stretch, but Touch Gold and McCarron were still to be heard from.

What Bob Lewis liked about Silver Charm was that he would look a rival in the eye and dig in, but this day, Baffert still thinks, Silver Charm didn’t see Touch Gold coming. Free House was between them, temporarily blocking Silver Charm’s view of Touch Gold, who was as far outside as he could be. The difference on the line was three-quarters of a length.

Lewis said he has never discussed that race with McCarron.

“Chris is one of the best in the game, and I have the utmost respect for him,” Lewis said. “He was just doing his job, trying to win.”

Back at the hotel near Belmont Park, it had rained on Lewis’ post-race party.

Trying to cut through the gloom, Lewis walked in and said to his guests, “Don’t forget how lucky we are just to be here, and don’t treat this like somebody died.”

Hofmans never considered throwing the Belmont trophy back.

“I know it would have been a big deal to the industry to finally have another Triple Crown winner,” he said. “But that’s what makes the Triple Crown so tough--you’ve got to beat all the horses in all the races.

“I thought we had a legitimate shot going into the Belmont, and I had no doubt about the mile and a half. I saw the disappointment [in the Lewises] and you don’t like to see that, but my horse deserved it.

“He proved himself again by winning the Haskell too,” Hofmans added, referring to the $1-million Haskell Handicap that August at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J.

Rash to Judgment

Entering the 1998 Belmont, Victory Gallop and Walden, his trainer, were a mess. Victory Gallop, after finishing half a length behind Real Quiet in the Derby and beaten by 2 1/4 lengths in another second-place finish in the Preakness, had lost a lot of weight and had an ugly rash on his backside. Walden was on crutches, having injured himself in a pickup basketball game in Kentucky.

“Those were three hard weeks,” Walden said.

Real Quiet, though, was not entering the Belmont under a full head of steam. It had been hot and humid for the Preakness, which took a lot out of him, and he’d also had a fever in Baltimore.

Handicappers looked at the 11-horse field and concluded that this Belmont was a two-horse race. At the eighth pole, that was the case, and Real Quiet, under Kent Desormeaux, was four lengths ahead of Victory Gallop and Stevens. The crowd of 80,162 sensed that racing’s hunt for the elusive Triple was finally over. But then Real Quiet seemed to lose focus, and Stevens sent Victory Gallop into overdrive. Victory Gallop put his nose in front at the wire, the closest Belmont finish in 36 years.

“The next jump, my horse was back in front,” Baffert said. “The only jump Victory Gallop was in front the whole race was the one at the wire.”

After the race, Baffert took the high road, not criticizing the ride by Desormeaux, who was accused in some quarters of having moved too soon. But the other day, during a training break at Churchill, Baffert said:

“Kent was in it for the money. He hired a [business] agent and was thinking about a lot of other things. He lost his focus. The thing about the Triple Crown is, you can’t think about the money. I’ve told this to Victor [Espinoza, who rides War Emblem]. Just ride your horse. Kent didn’t move early, but he didn’t ride the horse with any confidence. When you’ve got the best horse in the race, you’ve got to ride him that way.”

Interviewed recently by the Daily Racing Form, Desormeaux said:

“It was a devastating loss. I wish he’d beat me by five [lengths], not the width of a fingernail.... I was laughing at the quarter pole. I thought it was going to be the easiest race I’d ever won, and it was for the Triple Crown.... I might do some things differently.... Maybe it’s something that will help me in the future.”

Desormeaux rode Real Quiet only once more, finishing second again. Stevens and Jerry Bailey rode the horse the rest of his career.

Stevens had ridden Victory Gallop for the first time in the Preakness.

“We launched a sneak attack on Real Quiet,” Stevens said. “That was the same thing that McCarron and Touch Gold did to beat me and Silver Charm the year before.”

At 29-1, He Was No Lemon

Like Real Quiet, who had been bought at auction for $17,000, Charismatic was also considered a blue-collar horse, especially after Lukas twice had run him in claiming races for $62,500. Luckily for the Lewises, no rival trainers bought him.

When Charismatic won the Derby, at 31-1, he was the first winner to have run in a claiming race since Dust Commander 29 years earlier. Charismatic was also the first claiming refugee to win the Preakness since Deputed Testamony 16 years before.

In the Belmont, he could have become the first ex-claimer to win in 34 years. The crowd was 85,818, a Belmont Park record. Charismatic’s biggest rivals were perceived to be the Walden-trained Menifee, second in the Derby and the Preakness, and the filly Silverbulletday. Horses like Lemon Drop Kid, ninth in the Derby and absent from the Preakness, and Vision And Verse were considered rank longshots.

“The two weeks between the Derby and the Preakness just fly by,” Bob Lewis said. “But the three weeks between the Preakness and the Belmont are just overwhelming.”

Despite Lemon Drop Kid’s disappointing Derby, his trainer, Scotty Schulhofer, was bullish about his Belmont chances.

“The distance was going to be right down his alley,” said Schulhofer, who had won the Belmont with Colonial Affair six years earlier. Schulhofer had to change jockeys for the Derby, hiring Jose Santos after John Velazquez jumped ship to ride Three Ring, the filly who finished last at Churchill Downs.

Santos got off Lemon Drop Kid after the Derby and said:

“I was hung out there [wide] the whole way. We ran a mile and three-eighths in a mile-and-a-quarter race. This horse should win the Belmont. He can beat these.”

The Belmont was Charismatic’s last race. In a 12-horse field, he led with a quarter of a mile left, but finished third, behind Lemon Drop Kid at 29-1 and Vision And Verse at 54-1. Charismatic broke his left foreleg and was deftly pulled up just past the wire by jockey Chris Antley, who protected the horse until the vets arrived.

From the crowded box-seat section, the Lewises couldn’t see the finish.

“A horse is hurt,” their daughter Nancy said.

“Who?” Beverly Lewis said.

“Ours,” her daughter said.

The Lewises lauded Antley for his post-race composure, but Lukas was critical of the ride. Charismatic usually made his run from the middle of the pack, but in the Belmont, Antley had him close to Silverbulletday’s pace.

“Charismatic’s style should have been perfect for the Belmont,” Lukas said. “But Antley took him out of that style. He didn’t ride him to his form, and that compromised his chances.”

Antley was found dead at his Pasadena home in December 2000. A coroner’s report said that the death was caused by an accidental drug overdose.

Schulhofer, who retired from training in January and lives in Hollywood, Fla., thought about the two Belmonts he’d won. In 1993, favored Prairie Bayou broke down on the backstretch and was euthanized.

“So both times, the favorite broke down,” said Schulhofer, a Hall of Fame trainer. “But I don’t think they would have beaten my horses, anyway. Colonial Affair was a real good horse, and Lemon Drop Kid was the best horse I ever trained.”

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Sports Editor Bill Dwyre contributed to this report.