Heartache and Hope

A painted jockey wearing the green-and-yellow racing colors of Bob and Beverly Lewis stands in the courtyard of the bayfront Newport Beach home the couple shared.

Inside, a portrait of their first Kentucky Derby winner, Silver Charm, hangs over a fireplace, the mantle below it lined with elegantly sculptured Eclipse Awards.

Beverly Lewis will return to Churchill Downs with a horse in the Derby for the ninth time Saturday. But it will be the first time without Bob, who died of heart failure in February at 81.

“We were married 58 years, so something’s missing,” she said.

There will be reminders of some of the most exquisite days of their lives -- the afternoon when Silver Charm won in 1997 and the day Charismatic won in 1999. And there will be heartache.

“You have to take the difficult things, and accept them. Just do what you can with it,” Beverly said.

She’ll be surrounded Saturday by her three children and two of her four grandchildren.

“She enjoys the horse business just as much as Dad did,” said Jeff Lewis, the son who now directs the family operation that includes about 60 horses.

“It’s a real blessing we have something so exciting so soon after Dad’s passing. It’s keeping her spirits up.”

The silks Rafael Bejarano will wear as he rides Point Determined -- a son of Point Given -- are the colors of the University of Oregon, where the Lewises met in 1946.

Bob Lewis, just home from the war, was a yell leader, signing up girls to try out for the rally squad. He didn’t miss the sophomore with the deep blue eyes.

“Bob was taking the names of the all girls applying -- and phone numbers,” Beverly said. “I didn’t get the job, but he called me that evening and we went and had a beer, even though I didn’t drink beer. So that’s how we met.”

On another date, they went to the races at Portland Meadows.

“Mr. Lewis was extremely lucky, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is great,’ ” Beverly said. “We had a lot of fun.”

For their honeymoon, they went to Del Mar.

“The track wasn’t open yet, so we went down to Tijuana and saw the horses and the jai alai at night,” she said. “We had no idea we’d get into horse racing.”

Bob made the family fortune with a wholesale beer distributorship, and in 1990, Bob and Beverly -- it was always Bob and Beverly -- got into the horse business.

They had unimaginable success. Silver Charm and Charismatic almost won the Triple Crown, and their horses won six Triple Crown races, all told.

Point Determined, trained by Bob Baffert, the trainer of Silver Charm, is a colt who could be lying in wait for the speedy front-runners in this Derby to falter at the 1 1/4 -mile distance.

“It’s better than being the favorite,” Beverly said. “Only two favorites have won in the past I-don’t know-how-many years. It’s going to be a good Derby.

“What are our hopes? Well, that he hits the board. He’s coming on. He’s getting better all the time. Bob Baffert says he’ll do fine.”

Baffert, a three-time Derby winner, expects to have three horses in the race, with Wood Memorial winner Bob and John, and Blue Grass Stakes winner Sinister Minister also in the field.

In Kentucky, Beverly Lewis will be among friends. The horse people all know who she is, and she and Bob were long seen as racing’s most gracious couple.

“I can’t believe it. I have had so many lovely letters and flowers,” she said. “I got I-don’t-know-how-many cards with full letters. Very kind, considerate. He was very generous and friendly, even to the backside people. People stop me at the racetrack to talk about him.”

Going places without him remains an adjustment.

“The first time I went to a cocktail party, the trainers had a benefit for the backside,” she said. “It was the first time I’ve gone to a party with hundreds of people without my husband. That was difficult. But it was a very nice evening.”

Amid all the focus on the accident that left Brother Derek’s trainer, Dan Hendricks, in a wheelchair and the plane crash that Barbaro’s trainer, Michael Matz, survived, there is relatively little on the Lewis family. Bob’s death after a long illness was expected, but that didn’t make it easy.

“I would imagine, if we should be blessed with winning or even hitting the board, it would be poignant,” Jeff Lewis said. “We’re going down there with the same hopes as 19 other owners.

“Of course we’ll miss Dad, but we’re going to have a good time, and we don’t expect it to be somber.”

Bob Lewis, remembered for his smile, wouldn’t have wanted it to be.

As he said after Silver Charm’s victory, “‘I’ve asked Beverly, when you plant me six feet under, I want on that tombstone: ‘Loving Husband, Adoring Father, and Winner of the 123rd Kentucky Derby.’ ”

If they could add winner of the 132nd, wouldn’t that be something?