Stephens Critical of Stevens’ Ride in Preakness : Trainer Says Jockey’s Strategy May Have Cost Winning Colors the Victory

BALTIMORE — Trainer Woody Stephens said Sunday that jockey Gary Stevens “rode a stupid race” in Saturday’s Preakness and may have kept Winning Colors from winning.

Winning Colors and Stevens were knocked around at least eight times in the Pimlico race by the Stephens-trained Forty Niner, with the 3-year-old filly settling for third place behind Risen Star and Brian’s Time. Winning Colors, who won the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago, was attempting to become the first filly to win more than one Triple Crown race.

After the Preakness, Stevens exonerated Pat Day for the aggressive ride on Forty Niner and suggested that Stephens’ instructions were responsible for the roughhouse tactics. Forty Niner wound up seventh, 14 lengths behind Risen Star.

“I thought Stevens rode a stupid race,” Stephens said by phone from his Belmont Park headquarters Sunday. “I’m surprised he kept pressing my horse with the filly.

“(Wayne) Lukas (Winning Colors’ trainer) had been saying that his filly didn’t necessarily have to run on the lead. Being inside her, we had to go, and I thought Stevens would ease the filly back. If he does that, we ease back, too.

“Pat Day’s too classy a rider to bother somebody on purpose. He was trying to stay off the inside like I told him, because that wasn’t a good place to be. If Stevens had eased the filly back, I think they would have won the race.”

On his return to Hollywood Park Sunday afternoon, Stevens was told of the trainer’s comments and said:

“I don’t want to hear it. I’ve got no response to what Woody has to say. It’s over. It’s turf history. Hopefully, we’ll come back and win the Belmont. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

The first three Preakness finishers--Risen Star, Brian’s Time and Winning Colors--will run in the Belmont. Private Terms, who finished fourth hemorrhaged from the lungs during the race and will be rested.

Forty Niner won’t run in the Belmont, which Stephens has won five times. His likely Belmont starter is Digress, who first runs in the Peter Pan at Belmont Park next Sunday. Another possibility in the Belmont for Stephens is Cefis, who ran fifth in the Preakness.

Stephens said that Forty Niner had never been more tired following a race than he was Saturday. The colt drank 1 1/2 buckets of water, after throwing cold water on both his and Winning Colors’ chances in the Preakness.

As for the Risen Star camp, it turns out that Ronnie Lamarque, the colt’s 50% owner, personally put up the $5,000 needed to enter the colt in the Preakness, predicted the victory that occurred and also announced that the race would put his trainer and partner, Louie Roussel, on the backstretch map.

It is a compatible partnership because Roussel knows how to take Lamarque, a New Orleans automobile dealer. Roussel goes home when Lamarque starts singing--even the Dixieland Ditty dedicated to Risen Star--and after listening to his partner, then makes the decisions based on horsemanship. Receiving instant credit among peers for overnight accomplishments in racing is rare. Some fellow trainers begrudge Lukas his domination of the game in the 1980s because he was still training quarter horses in the late 1970s.

Before the Kentucky Derby, a trainer of one of the horses said that Risen Star might win “if he can overcome his trainer.” Risen Star ran third, losing by only 3 lengths, and even after his Preakness win, nobody was jumping to take up Roussel’s defense.

But they should at least credit Roussel for one decision--to work Risen Star faster than usual the day before the Preakness. Under orders, exercise rider Jimmy Nichols worked the colt three furlongs in 36 4/5 on a muddy track, which is about two seconds faster than he might normally run.

“We wanted that speed work because if Forty Niner didn’t run with Winning Colors early, we were going to be stalking,” Roussel said. “And if the pace was slow, we were going to try to make the lead after a half-mile. We’ll do the same thing in the Belmont, if there’s no honest pace and nobody to run with Winning Colors.”

Because Forty Niner not only made Winning Colors hustle, but also crowded her to the outside with repeated bumping tactics, Delahoussaye was able to sit back in third place, always less than two lengths off the lead. Risen Star moved inside of the brawling front-runners on the far turn, took the lead and then won comfortably despite a commendable late run by Brian’s Time, who will be a dangerous horse in the Belmont.

At Hollywood Park Sunday, Delahoussaye said he was “shocked” by the tactics employed in the race.

“For a race that prestigious, it’s all right to ride aggressively,” he said. “But I was shocked to see what I did.”

Whether the Preakness was a fair race for Winning Colors in her bid for a second victory in the Triple Crown depends on which Stevens/Stephens you believe.

“I can’t dwell on what I have no control over,” Lukas said. “But I was surprised that Woody (Stephens) seemed to think that he had the filly to beat and nobody else. They say Woody is old, rich and smart. Well, he’s two of the above.”