From now until the end of time, the Belmont Stakes never will be run without recalling the unique exploits of the great classic’s master craftsman, the late Woody Stephens.
On a streak in the 1980s, the trainer won five straight Belmonts, a feat that all but defies comprehension. It is said that winning the Triple Crown is the single most difficult achievement in sports. But how can that be when 11 horses have done it in 134 years?
Only one man has won five consecutive Belmonts in 144 years, and no one expects ever to see it again. Three trainers, including Wayne Lukas, have won three in a row. But five? Never. Impossible.
Woody’s memory has overhung every Belmont since his death in 1998, but this year it will be especially tender if Dullahan wins. The likely second favorite behind I’ll Have Another, Dullahan is trained by Dale Romans, one of Woody’s acolytes.
Romans worked for him briefly in 1986, when Danzig Connection, completed the Stephens sweep.
“I was just a kid then,” Romans recalled yesterday. “I went to work for him because I wanted to see how a stable like that operated. Woody was my hero.”
He was almost everyone’s hero. Trainer John Parisella has a fund of Woody stories.
“I remember he once entered a horse for $75,000 in a claiming race and the leading trainer in the city at that time claimed him, but the horse wasn’t worth a dollar,” Parisella said with a laugh. “Woody bragged about that for three months. Then he went out and bought [his wife] Lucille a new Mercedes with the 75 grand.
“Sometimes he’d see me and say, ‘Johnny, bet your money today. I closed the top door on this one.’ ”
Back in 1984, Woody took his front-running Kentucky Derby winner Swale to Pimlico for the Preakness.
Parisella was waiting for him with a speed freak named Fight Over. Parisella held court with the press and told them, “You tell Woody he’s not getting the lead here. We’re gonna be on the lead.”
We ran over to Woody’s barn and told him what Parisella said. Woody thought for a moment and said, “Parisella would rather be on the lead than president.”
And so it happened. Jockey Ossie Vergara gunned Fight Over out of the gate and opened three lengths, scorching the mile in a killer 1.34.2 — more than a second faster than Secretariat ran it. At the finish, Fight Over held for third while Swale was nowhere to be seen at 4-5.
Swale went on to win the Belmont, but a few days later, he collapsed and died as he was walking from the track back to the barn. To this day, the exact cause of death is unknown.
“Woody stood alone,” said Parisella. But how did he win five Belmonts?
“Because he laid those horses on the fence,” Parisella said.
Meaning, Woody worked his horses hard, fast and often. And if they couldn’t take the heat, they were gone.
“Not many trainers today do what Woody did all those years,” Parisella said. “The one exception is Bob Baffert. He trains his horses just like Woody — he lays them on the fence. He doesn’t think twice about working a horse 6f. in 1.10 and change before a big race.”
Trainer Bill Badgett worked in Woody’s barn for four of his five Belmonts. To this day, he stands in awe of the master.
“He was a tremendous person with phenomenal charisma,” Badgett said yesterday. “He was extremely competitive, more than most people realized. But he was a great horseman, tremendous to work for. He never raised his voice and generous? I made more money with his stakes winners than with my salary.”
Just winning five Belmonts is unthinkable, but Badgett said that what made the accomplishment even more astounding is that Woody never had more than 36 horses in his barn at any one time.. Some big modern trainers have a hundred to 200 horses.
Woody Stephens was a Kentucky hardboot at heart, but he had a special kind of magic that we all miss — and especially at this time when the bugler calls the field to the track for the Belmont Stakes, known now and forever as Woody’s Race.