”Every night I set my clock for 5:15 in the morning. Every morning I`m awake an hour before the alarm goes off. It`s automatic.”
–trainer Woody Stephens Relatively healthy, very wealthy and perhaps wise beyond his 71 years, Woody Stephens got up early Saturday and went into the 117th running of the Belmont several steps ahead of the times.
Standing outside Barn 2–bright and early with June bustin` out all over
–he stopped to think before replying when a man with a microphone broached the subject of retirement.
Then, repeating the question, Stephens said: ”What would I do if I left the racetrack? I guess I`d probably be pretty unhappy. I came to the racetrack way back in January of `29 when I was a Kentucky farm boy who rode his pony to school, and I`ve been here ever since.
”I`ve been in this game 55 years, and 43 of those years I`ve been a trainer. What else can you do after you`ve done something this long? You can`t go downtown where you won`t see anybody you know.”
And how can you quit when you`ve worked this long and hard to get this far ahead of a game that is intrinsically a gamble? At an age when most are becoming ensconced in retirement, Stephens is at the apex of his career.
Last year–eight years after he was inducted into thoroughbred racing`s Hall of Fame–he had his best year.
His horses won 40 stakes races and earned $5.2 million for the nine owners who are his clients.
When Swale captured the 1984 Belmont, it was Stephens` third straight victory in the classic. Only one other trainer in the history of the Belmont had accomplished that feat, D. McDaniel from 1871-73.
Swale died unexpectedly eight days later, but his achievements put him on a pedestal in the 1984 Eclipse Award balloting. Swale was chosen North America`s champion 3-year-old, the 10th Eclipse Award winner for Stephens to break a record he shared with Ben Jones.
”I don`t think anybody else is ever going to win three straight Belmonts,” said Stephens, who shot for four in a row Saturday with the entries of Stephan`s Odyssey and Creme Fraiche. ”The game has changed too much since that gentleman won the three in a row in the 1870s. There weren`t the number of foals then that there are today. Now the odds are stacked against it.
”Another thing–then, there were no public stables. A man who trained for one of the big owners was pretty sure of coming up with outstanding horses every year. Today the top horses are scattered among many stables.”
Still, Stephens seems to be getting the cream of the crop. The losses his stable suffered last year would have been devastating for most trainers. Stephens himself wasn`t immune, either.
He broke two ribs in early spring, then came down with pleurisy, after which pneumonia set in and sent him to the hospital.
Next, Devil`s Bag, the champion 2-year-old of 1983 whom Stephens regarded as his all-time best Triple Crown prospect, was hobbled by bone chips. The colt couldn`t run in the Kentucky Derby and had to be retired.
Then Swale died after winning the Derby and the Belmont.
But stakes horses keep rolling off his assembly line into the winner`s circle almost automatically. The fillies in Stephens` stable raced into the void. Miss Oceana won five stakes, including two Grade I races in nine days, Sabin captured five straight stakes and Contredance took two before having surgery for a bone chip in her ankle.
”We had a lot of setbacks,” Stephens said. ”I`m fortunate to have good, understanding owners who don`t bother me. I turn down a lot of owners every year. I`m also lucky to have young people like Sandy Bruno and Billy Badgett working for me. No stable has anybody better than those two.
”It took a long while to get going again after I had the pneumonia, but thanks to the people I have working for me, the stable kept going strong.
”Billy is in charge of all the horses I send to Aiken (S.C.) to train during the winter while I`m racing in Florida, and then he rejoins me in the summer.
”Sandy finished college and went back and got her master`s degree. After that, she started teaching school and walked horses for me at Saratoga during the summer vacations. I could see how talented she was. One day I said,
`Sandy, you work full time for me, and I`ll make it worth your while.`
Lucky for me, she took me up on it.”
Stephens` own education came on the racetrack. But his expertise in the fine art of training thoroughbreds has provided contacts with men and women who are financial pillars of American society. His agile and inquisitive mind has enabled him to find a common wavelength and to discover how to make money talk.
”I have some nice investments,” Stephens said. ”The late John Morris came to me in the `40s and said: `Woody, you work for your money. You also should let it work for me.` I followed his advice and I`ll be forever grateful.
”I also have five mares of my own at Claiborne (Farm in Kentucky) and breeding rights to 14 horses I trained before they went to stud. These are some of the best stallions in the world.”
One of those stallions is Danzig, the young sire of Stephan`s Odyssey and Chief`s Crown, the early-line favorite in the Belmont.
Stephens isn`t a boastful man, yet he is aware of his accomplishments and proud of them.
”The first Triple Crown race I won was the 1952 Preakness with Blue Man,” he said. ”I won the 100th Kentucky Derby with Cannonade in 1974 and I won the Derby again with Swale last year. I won the Belmont with Conquistador Cielo and Caveat and Swale.”
But to Stephens, there is a fine line between winning and winning ugly. He has never forgiven the superbly skilled and fiercely competitive jockey, Angel Cordero, for an incident involving Caveat in the 1983 Belmont.
At the top of the stretch, Cordero`s horse, Slew o` Gold, forced Au Point toward the rail and he collided with Caveat. Although Caveat went on to win, he came out of the race with an injury that ended his career.
”No telling what kind of horse Caveat would have turned out to be as a 4-year-old, but he came out of that race ruined,” Stephens said. ”Slew o`
Gold went on to become Horse of the Year, but Caveat outran him every time they met. He even did it after he hit the fence four or five times because of what Cordero did.
”There couldn`t be a rider who rode a better race than Cordero rode for me on Cannonade in the 100th Kentucky Derby. He`s a great rider. But winning a race is never important enough to ruin a horse.
”I want to be the only one to win four Belmonts in a row. And if I do, when I wake up Sunday morning I`ll think about it for awhile. But if I don`t, I won`t lose any sleep. And if you told me I`d have to ruin a horse to get it, I`d tell you, `I don`t want it.` ”
