Horse Racing : Alysheba Might Buck the Belmont Trend

The winners of the last 10 runnings of the Belmont Stakes have had many things in common. Alysheba, who will be trying to win the Belmont and, with it, the Triple Crown in New York a week from Saturday, shares some of those characteristics, but in most ways he’ll be going against the grain.

For instance:

--Nine of the last 10 winners were Belmont-based horses and the one who wasn’t, Affirmed, spent his entire 2-year-old season, 1977, at Belmont.

Alysheba had never seen Belmont until he arrived there May 18, a couple of days after winning the Preakness.

--Six of the last 10 winners did not run in the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness, and a seventh, Caveat, ran only in the Derby. However, of the three Belmont winners that ran in both the Derby and the Preakness, two--Seattle Slew in 1977 and Affirmed in 1978--won the Triple Crown.

--Seven of the last 10 winners raced between the Preakness and the Belmont. Again, the exceptions were Seattle Slew and Affirmed, plus Swale, the 1984 Derby winner who took the Belmont after running seventh in the Preakness.

--Five of the 10 winners were able to handle an off track. Alysheba has finished second twice on tracks that were labeled good, in a stake race at Turfway Park in Kentucky last year and in the San Felipe Handicap at Santa Anita in March.

--Six of the 10 winners had run a race over the Belmont track, and the four others--Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Swale and Creme Fraiche--had raced at Belmont as 2-year-olds. Alysheba’s Belmont will be his first race over the track.

--Six of the 10 were in front after a mile in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont, with four leading virtually all the way. Only 2 of the 10 winners were not close to the pace early. Caveat was nine lengths behind after a mile in 1983, and Creme Fraiche trailed by 5 1/2 lengths at the same pole in 1985.

Alysheba, far back early in the cluttered, 17-horse Derby, was much closer in the Preakness and actually stalked Bet Twice for the last three-eighths of a mile, passing him with about 50 yards to go.

--Although post positions are supposed to be meaningless in a 1 1/2-mile race, 8 of the last 10 winners have been No. 5 or higher. Affirmed and Temperence Hill, in 1980, both won from No. 3, with Affirmed starting exactly in the middle of a five-horse field.

Post positions will be drawn a week from today at Belmont, with each owner paying $5,000 to enter. It costs another $5,000 to start.

The Preakness is the most formful of the Triple Crown races, with the Kentucky Derby the hardest to figure and the Belmont falling in between.

Alysheba was the 60th favorite to have won the Preakness, increasing the race’s rating to 53%.

Only 42% of the Derby favorites have won, none since Spectacular Bid in 1979. Only one of the last eight favorites--Swale in 1984--has won the Belmont, which has a 46% favorite rate.

Trainer Wayne Lukas, who nominated 17 horses for the Triple Crown races, said Wednesday that he would not have a starter in the Belmont.

Lukas started three horses in the Derby and one in the Preakness this year. The best finish was Lookinforthebigone’s seventh in the Preakness. Lukas is now 0 for 12 in the Derby, 2 for 7 in the Preakness and 0 for 3 in the Belmont.

Lukas’ best Triple Crown prospect this year was Talinum, winner of the Flamingo at Hialeah, but he went lame at Churchill Downs a week before the Derby.

X-rays of Talinum have shown no breaks and he continues to rest at the farm of his owner, Nelson Bunker Hunt, in Lexington, Ky.

“Because we couldn’t find a reason for the lameness, we’ve left him at the farm as a precaution,” Lukas said. “Eventually, we’ll send him to New York and get him into a light program to try to get him fit again.”

Lost Code, who has won the Alabama Derby and the Illinois Derby in his last two starts, was not eligible for the Triple Crown races, but he probably wouldn’t have run in the Belmont, anyway.

Lost Code started his current four-race winning streak after being treated with Lasix, a diuretic given to horses who bleed.

In New York, horses under medication are not allowed to race. This has been mentioned as a factor regarding Alysheba, who won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness while running on Lasix, but his trainer, Jack Van Berg, points out that Gate Dancer, who won the Preakness for him in 1984 while on Lasix, went to New York without any problems. Gate Dancer finished sixth in the Belmont but the following year was second, just beaten by Proud Truth, in the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Aqueduct.

Lost Code, who probably will run in the Ohio Derby at Thistledown June 13, is the result of a chance meeting of his owner, David Levinson, and his trainer, Bill Donovan, at a Baltimore car wash a couple of years ago.

Levinson, a former member of the Maryland Racing Commission, mentioned to Donovan that he was interested in buying a horse in the $25,000-$30,000 range. Not long afterward, Donovan was in Florida and saw two horses for sale.

He bought Lost Code, whose $30,000 asking price was in Levinson’s range, and passed on the other horse, which would have cost $50,000. The $50,000 horse was Harriman, who won the Cherry Hill Mile at Garden State Park in early April but hasn’t done much since and finished last in the Preakness.

Horse Racing Notes “Ahead With Horses,” a group that furnishes horses for handicapped children to ride for therapy, is trying to raise funds by selling greeting cards with color pictures of jockeys Bill Shoemaker, Eddie Maple, Eddie Delahoussaye, Laffit Pincay, Chris McCarron and Pat Day on the cover. The cards are available at the Hollywood Park gift shop. . . . The California Equine Retirement Foundation (CERF), which is trying to find places for retired race horses to stay, has obtained its tax-exempt status and is in the process of establishing ranches near Westlake Village and in the Santa Ynez Valley. . . . Mr. Heckle and Mrs. Jeckle are twins, which is a racing oddity. The 2-year-old pacers raced in the same qualifying race recently at Fairplex Park in Pomona and next month are scheduled to meet in a betting race, which would be a first according to the United States Trotting Assn. In most cases, only one of twin horses survives, and even if both do, one is usually too small to compete. . . . Dancing Halo, a 3-year-old filly, made her first start last Monday at Hollywood Park and won by 8 1/2 lengths, running 6 1/2 furlongs in a faster time than stakes horses of the same age had done the day before. “She could be any kind,” says Mike Smith, an assistant to trainer Gary Jones.