Silver Charm Is 1 1/2 Miles From History

ELMONT, N.Y. — For most of the last two decades, the last race in the Triple Crown series has been little more than the eighth or the ninth at Belmont. But all of that changes today, thanks to a metallic gray colt who has flagged the attention of even the most blase New Yorkers.

Just when the Belmont Stakes seemed to have taken a one-way ticket to Palookaville--crowds the last three years have barely averaged 40,000--Silver Charm has entered the life of the beleaguered New York Racing Assn., and today this long-striding colt will take a king-sized swipe at history, trying to become the 12th horse to win the Triple Crown.

There are enough horses around from the first two legs, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, to make the 1 1/2 miles more than intriguing. Free House, stubbornly unsuccessful against Silver Charm in both races, and Crypto Star and Touch Gold, each beaten in one of the other tests, will be joined by three others who are eligible for the spoiler’s role at Belmont Park.

Besides stirring the locals--today’s crowd may go over the 50,000 mark for the first time since 1992--Silver Charm has also roused the entire racing establishment, which began the year wondering where its next Cigar was coming from.

“Racing needs a Michael Jordan or a Ken Griffey Jr. type, and maybe this horse will give it to us,” said trainer Bob Baffert, who’s as fast with the quips as his horse is on his feet.

Of course, there’s more at stake today for the Charmsters--Baffert, owners Bob and Beverly Lewis and jockey Gary Stevens--than merely the good of the game. The Belmont purse is $721,000, with $432,600 of it for the winner, but for Silver Charm there’s an extra $5 million on the line, the bonus a horse earns for sweeping the Triple Crown races.

“The stakes are running high at Belmont,” it says on the cover of the what-to-do magazine that guests at the many Manhattan hotels use. On Friday night on the Jim Lehrer PBS program, which hasn’t done a racing piece in years, there was a segment about Silver Charm and his effect on the sport.

At Belmont, where the average daily attendance last year was about 8,000, the front office is determined to do better than it did for the last big-day event run here, the Breeders’ Cup in 1995.

Only 37,246 came, smallest crowd in Breeders’ Cup history, and many of them went home grumbling. Some of the concession stands ran out of food, many bettors were shut out at the windows and service in the dining room was as slow as a race on an off track.

“We’ve got a lot of extra people working this time,” said Kenny Noe, chairman of Belmont and the other New York tracks, Aqueduct and Saratoga. “There’ll be some new people at the races [today], some of them for the first time ever, and we want them to go away remembering a good experience.”

The Belmont itself looms as no pushover for Silver Charm, who has won the first two races in the Triple Crown by a pair of heads. He wasn’t favored in the Derby or the Preakness--in fact, he has been favored only twice as he has won five of eight starts and earned $1.6 million--but is likely to draw the most money today. He’s 6-5 on the morning line, but bettors are also expected to show respect for the entry of Touch Gold and Wild Rush, which is 2-1, and Free House, who is 5-2.

The others running are Crypto Star, Mr. Energizer and Irish Silence, and they’ll get a fast track, with no rain forecast and temperatures expected to be in the low 70s.

The trainers and jockeys of Silver Charm’s six rivals have checked their sentimentality at the door. Said David Hofmans, who trains Touch Gold: “If [Silver Charm] deserves to be ranked with Seattle Slew, Affirmed and Secretariat, then he should have to earn it. I hope we’re on even terms with him going for home, and then we’ll go from there.”

The horses Hofmans mentioned are three of the 11 Triple Crown champions, Affirmed being the last horse to win it in 1978. Twelve horses have reached the Belmont with victories in the first two races, but couldn’t win here. Two horses--Burgoo King (1932) and Bold Venture (1936)--won the first two races but didn’t run in the Belmont.

Since 1982, there have been only two near misses, Alysheba finishing fourth while Bet Twice won the Belmont in 1987, and Sunday Silence finishing second, eight lengths behind Easy Goer, in 1989.

Charlie Whittingham, who trained Sunday Silence, recently said that the horse ran in the Belmont with a patched-up foot and he wouldn’t have started him if there hadn’t been $5 million on the line. At the end of the year, Sunday Silence turned the tables on Easy Goer in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Alysheba was beaten by more than 14 lengths and his jockey, Chris McCarron, who rides Touch Gold today, is not proud of the ride he gave trainer Jack Van Berg.

“I’ve second-guessed myself a lot about that race,” McCarron said. “I misunderstood Jack’s instructions. He wanted me to race the horse forwardly if the horse wanted to, and that’s the way I should have ridden him.”

Riding confusion is common in the Belmont, because it is the only U.S. race on dirt at 1 1/2 miles, and pace is difficult to judge. Ronnie Franklin probably moved too soon with Spectacular Bid in 1979 as their Triple Crown hopes were dashed with a third-place finish.

“The only thing smart about Ronnie is that he knows he isn’t smart,” Spectacular Bid’s exasperated trainer, Bud Delp, said of Franklin.

Paco Gonzalez, who trains Free House, the Santa Anita Derby winner and twice a conqueror of Silver Charm this year, would like a better ride from Kent Desormeaux than the one he delivered in the Preakness. At Pimlico, Desormeaux, in effect, rode three horses, concerning himself with Touch Gold trying to close ground on the rail and floating Silver Charm on his right, toward the center of the track. With his own mount, Desormeaux failed to go to the whip in the final strides as Free House lost by inches.

“Kent was our most valuable player,” Baffert said. “He rode every horse but his own. He did us a big favor.”

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Belmont Stakes Facts

TIME: 2:30 p.m. TV: Channel 7 WHERE: Belmont Park, Elmont, N.Y. Today’s Belmont Stakes Field: *--*

P. HORSE JOCKEY ODDS 1. a-Touch Gold McCarron 2-1 2. Silver Charm Stevens 6-5 3. Crypto Star Day 6-1 4. a-Wild Rush Bailey 2-1 5. Mr. Energizer Ortega 30-1 6. Free House Desormeaux 5-2 7. Irish Silence Velazquez 50-1

*--*

a-Frank Stronach-owned entry. CAPSULES OF FIELD C5