SWAY THE TREES, SMARTY:

Looking for a Hero In Hard Times (Tom Callahan, June 5, 2004, Washington Post)

On the eve of Secretariat's Belmont in 1973, the leader of the herd, Red Smith, asked Charlie Hatton of the Daily Racing Form, "How did he work this morning, Charlie?"

"The trees swayed," Hatton said.

In a way, Smith was getting it straight from the horse's mouth, because Hatton was the man who invented the American Triple Crown (a takeoff on Britain's Epson Derby, Two Thousand Guineas and St. Leger Stakes). In his dispatches, Charlie had grown weary of spelling out which three races Gallant Fox had won in 1930. Instead of the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont, it just as easily could have been the Derby, the Belmont and the Travers. By the way, Gallant Fox was the only Triple Crown winner to sire a Triple Crown winner, the misbegotten Omaha, who failed so miserably at stud that he closed out his career fathering cavalry horses at a remount station in Douglaston, Wyo.

By 1973 searchers had almost despaired of finding another three-year-old colt, filly or gelding (the unkindest cut of all) who could win all three races over just a five-week span.

God only made one Secretariat.

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Go heart or history? Bettors better beware (JIM O'DONNELL, 6/04/04, Chicago Sun-Times)

[T]here are three critical factors to consider before helping to make the final payment on Prince Smarty's new Long Island crown with gambling dollars:

No. 1 is that the colt is so long overdue for a ''bounce'' -- a regressive performance -- that the NYPD trampoline unit might take the urine sample if he wins again.

Since his 3-year-old debut at Oaklawn Park in the $100,000 Southwest in February, Smarty's measured performance arc has been up-steady-steady-steady-up. In his five appearances this year, he has whipped through winning Beyer Speed Figures of 95 (Southwest), 108 (Rebel), 107 (Arkansas Derby), 107 (Kentucky Derby) and a superb 118 (Preakness).

That's not supposed to happen. Doesn't he ever have to come up for air?

Point No. 2 is a nettlesome bit of history regarding the previous 11 Triple Crown winners and their past-performance stories leading up to the Belmont.

All 11 had at least two races over the Belmont strip, either as 2-year-olds or 3-year-olds. Every single one, from Sir Barton (1919) to Affirmed (1978).

Smarty has none.

Dismissable historical coincidence? Or compelling empirical evidence that the sweeping turns and deep surface of ''The Big Sandy'' is a place that must be experienced before it can be conquered?

Keenest Triple Crown historians will counter by noting that Seattle Slew opened his career with three straight wins at Belmont as a 2-year-old in the fall of 1976, culminating with a radar-notifying romp in the Grade I Champagne.

Ah yes, the empiricists will acknowledge. But that also means that Seattle Slew was intensely training for his racing debut in Elmont. Smarty didn't even hit the pike until midday Wednesday, less than 80 hours before his hour of truth.

Is that enough time to reprogram the nostrils and adrenal glands to one of the most demanding surfaces and topographies in North American racing?

Point No. 3 is as obvious as the holes in the trophy cases of Bob Baffert and D. Wayne Lukas: These contemporary Derby-Preakness winners just always find a way to get beat in the Belmont.

Will Smarty Jones show his Funny Cide? (JIM O'DONNELL, June 5, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)

There were two moments of notable poignancy on the Belmont backstretch Friday morning.

Either one may or may not be recalled whether or not Smarty Jones becomes history's 12th Triple Crown winner in the 136th running of the Belmont Stakes today (4:30 p.m.).

The first came about an hour after dawn on the crisp, sunny Long Island day. The chestnut people's hero was being led to the main oval from Barn 5, followed by his growing phalanx of credentialed followers. The Smarty Legion was being generaled by Roy Chapman, the colt's 78-year-old owner.

Even in his motorized wheelchair, with a tan ''Smarty Jones'' baseball cap and a blue-gray sailing jacket, Chapman buzzed forward with the sort of determination the Jones camp can only hope their star brings to this afternoon's $1 million, 1-1/2-mile marathon. Pickett probably did not rally his troops quite so deftly at Gettysburg.

As the parade rounded the final bend toward a break in the outside fence of the track's first turn, Belmont-based Barclay Tagg suddenly appeared to watch the peppy stream from underneath his shedrow. He was alone.

One year ago this weekend, Tagg was center stage as his Funny Cide sought to become history's 12th Triple Crown winner. He didn't make it, becoming the ninth Kentucky Derby-Preakness winner since 1978 to lose the Belmont. This weekend, both trainer and 4-year-old are being left all alone.

But Smarty Jones and Co. aren't. And after an effortless gallop around the sweeping Belmont track -- the same distance as today's 12-furlong heart tester -- America's newest idol had another surprise set of heavenly sent visitors outside his paddock.

Five nuns from a nearby elderly care center, all veiled and in the full white of the angels, appeared so they could have their picture taken with Smarty Jones. They were Little Sisters of the Poor. An attending security guard, with a voice right out of Archie Bunker's living room, cleared room at the outer fence of the paddock by telling swarming media: ''If you want to stay right with God for tomorrow's race, you might want to make room for the sisters here.''

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 5, 2004 7:43 AM