It was five days before the Preakness Stakes, and Gary Stevens had no idea what his responsibilities would be for NBC, nor did he seem to care much.
“I am not sure on the Preakness yet,” Stevens said. “I haven’t spoken to them in about four days. I am sure that it will be something in there and all I can say is I am part of the NBC team.”
Stevens had been the lead analyst for NBC’s Triple Crown coverage for the past seven years, but now his concern is with winning races not observing them. The 50-year-old came out of retirement in January, and as he did for the Kentucky Derby, will ride Oxbow in tomorrow’s Preakness Stakes.
Stevens has continued to help out NBC. He did a taped piece for the network’s Kentucky Derby coverage, did a conference call during the week before that race and was miked during it. For the Preakness, Stevens will be interviewed by Bob Costas, and NBC was hoping he would agree to be miked for that race as well.
“Gary is still on our announce team, but he is a jockey trying to win a Kentucky Derby and we respect that,” producer Rob Hyland told the AP before the year’s first Triple Crown race, won by Orb.
But Stevens, who has been replaced by Jerry Bailey for NBC’s coverage, doesn’t want any confusion about whether he is splitting time between being a jockey or analyst.
“I am not a roving reporter or anything like that,” said Stevens, who will ride in two other races tomorrow. “I am just being a jockey, not an analyst or a reporter. I’ve done what I can do for NBC, but there are certain times I have to be focused and do what I do and that’s be a jockey. And my job is a jockey right now, not an analyst.”
And he’s pretty good at both. Stevens has won eight Triple Crown races in his career, including the Preakness twice. He was on 24-1 shot Oxbow at the Kentucky Derby and rode the colt to a sixth-place finish.
“I was very proud of what Oxbow did and we were not too far back of one of the fastest paces in the Kentucky Derby and he held on well. He was one of only six horses that stayed up close to the pace. I worked him out this morning and liked what I felt,” Stevens said in the Monday interview.
Oxbow won’t be a long shot at Pimlico, as he’s among the top challengers to Orb in the nine-horse field, along with Departing and Mylute. But when he “switches hats” to analyze Orb, you realize Stevens faces a tall order in the 1 3/16-mile race.
“He looks like the best horse I’ve seen in about the last 30 years,” Stevens said of Orb. “Not just his races, but his connections, his pedigree and the way he was brought up in the Kentucky Derby with a long-term picture put into focus.”
jterranova@nypost.com
jterranova@nypost.com