Chrome Faces 10 in Last Leg of Triple Crown
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Sports FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2014 Chrome faces 10 in last leg of Triple Crown NEW YORK: Trainer Billy Gowan let out a whoop from the No. 2 post under Victor Espinoza. Eleven when Ride on Curlin landed a midpack post for the Belmont winners have come out of that spot in the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes. starting gate, the last being Tabasco Cat in 1994. You look for any possible edge when facing “I like No. 2,” Espinoza said. “Hopefully, it’s my California Chrome, the 3-5 favorite to become horse lucky number.” Racing fans looking for an omen will racing’s 12th Triple Crown champion, and first in 36 see California Chrome listed No. 2 in the betting pro- years. gram, the same number as 1973 Triple Crown winner The Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner will Secretariat, who won the Belmont by a record 31 face 10 rivals tomorrow, not a good omen in the lengths while setting the track record of 2:24 that still quest for racing’s ultimate prize. This would be the stands. As in all races, trainers and owners like to largest Belmont field ever beaten by a Triple Crown avoid the extremes: the inside and outside posts. winner. The 11 previous Triple Crown champions nev- Medal Count, 30-1, wound up on the rail. He ran er faced more than seven rivals in the 11/2-mile eighth in the Kentucky Derby and skipped the Belmont, the longest of the three races in the series. Preakness. Tonalist, 8-1, got post No. 11 as the third Since Affirmed became the last Triple Crown win- choice in his Triple Crown debut. ner in 1978, three Belmont fields with the same histo- “I think we are fine with it,” owner Robert Evans ry on the line also drew 11 horses in 1981, 1988 and said.The late developing colt was an impressive win- 2002. None of that bothers Art Sherman, California ner last month in Belmont Park’s Peter Pan Stakes Chrome’s trainer “They better worry about me,” he over a sloppy track. Tonalist has two wins in only four said. starts. In contrast, California Chrome has already run Ride on Curlin is one of the handful of challengers 12 times with eight victories. He carries a six-race win- with a realistic chance of pulling an upset. Gowan’s ning streak into the Belmont. colt is the 12-1 fourth choice from post No. 5. Wicked Strong was a distant second choice at 6-1 “I feel good about my post,” Gowan said after the on the morning line and drew post No. 9. The colt is WILLIAMSPORT: Steve Hauser coaches his grandson, Owen Newcomer, before draw Wednesday morning. “My horse is doing really based at Belmont, and has one win in two previous a Little League game. He is the son of Dick Hauser who played on one of the well. He’s sound. He’s happy. He’s eating everything, races at the sprawling track. original Little League teams in 1939, making him the second and Newcomer so we’re ready to roll.” Todd Pletcher recently became racing’s leading the fourth generation to play Little League. — AP After a trouble-filled trip to finish seventh in the money-winning trainer and owns two Belmont wins: Derby, Ride on Curlin uncorked a strong rally in the Rags to Riches and Palace Malice last year. Preakness to get second, only 11/2 lengths behind Pletcher sends out Commissioner, 20-1 after finish- After 75 years, Little California Chrome. ing second in the Peter Pan, and 30-1 shot “Hopefully, another five-sixteenths of a mile and Matterhorn, fourth in that same race. League still swings big bat we’ll be able to catch him as opposed to the Matuszak was second in the Federico Tesio at Preakness, but that Chrome is going to be hard to Pimlico on April 19, making him the most well-rested WILLIAMSPORT: Dick Hauser was an be a classroom,” said Stephen Keener, catch,” Gowan said. colt in the race. The 30-1 shot is trained and ridden by accidental Little Leaguer. Sitting on the Little League’s president and CEO. Ride On Curlin will have a new jockey for the Hall of Famers Bill Mott and Mike Smith, respectively. front porch of his Williamsport home 75 A lumber company clerk who doted Belmont in Hall of Famer John Velazquez, a two-time Ride On Curlin and General a Rod are the only other years ago, the 12-year-old was on his baseball-loving nephews, Stotz Belmont winner with the filly Rags to Riches (2007) horses besides California Chrome that will run in all approached by a man who asked, “Can saw a need for field dimensions and rules and Union Rags (2012). three legs of the Triple Crown. General a Rod, 20-1, you play ball?” His name was Carl Stotz, designed especially for younger boys. He Post positions are not a huge factor in the was 11th at Churchill Downs and fourth at Pimlico. and he was starting a youth baseball promoted his idea relentlessly, and Belmont. In a race this long over a track with sweep- Commanding Curve, the Derby runner-up, is 15-1 in league that would supply bats, balls and leagues patterned after Little League ing turns, jockeys have plenty of time to strategically his first start since then while Samraat, the lone New uniforms - unimaginable luxuries in spread rapidly throughout the US, then position their horses. California Chrome will break York bred in the field, is 20-1. — AP Depression-era Pennsylvania. internationally. After watching Hauser shag flies and Stotz would later split with Little field grounders, Stotz invited him to join. League in a legal dispute over the direc- “When you’re presented the opportunity tion of the program, and he died in 1992. to swing a real bat instead of a stick, and His family has since reconciled with Little play with a real ball instead of something League, contributing many artifacts to its round that had tape on it, it was awe- museum. “My father’s goal was to see a some,” Hauser, now 87, reminisced as he boy wearing a baseball hat,” said his watched his great-grandson - a fourth- daughter, Karen Stotz Myers. “He was generation ballplayer - take the field not thrilled so many children had that oppor- far from Little League’s birthplace. tunity.” Little League began with three teams A progenitor of today’s heavily organ- and Carl Stotz’s big dream: to teach boys ized youth sports, Little League has both the fundamentals of baseball along with reflected and shaped the culture. It values like teamwork and sportsman- becomes a reality show each August, its ship. young all-stars turned into mini-celebri- Today it’s a global enterprise with 2.1 ties by saturation TV coverage of the million baseball players and a long-run- World Series - a spectacle lamented by ning TV contract for its signature event, some critics. In the 1950s, it took a stand the 10-day Little League World Series, for civil rights by confronting dozens of played each August in front of 40,000 whites-only leagues in South Carolina. fans at South Williamsport’s Lamade Twenty years later, it found itself on the Stadium and watched by millions more other end of a civil rights battle, on ABC and ESPN. begrudgingly admitting girls amid a Little League is marking its 75th series of lawsuits. anniversary with a new PBS documen- Participation has declined about 20 tary, a partnership with Major League percent from its 1997 peak of 2.6 million, Baseball and a website that’s collecting likely a function of competition from oth- players’ memories and photos. er youth sports and activities. But it’ll With thousands of local leagues in 50 probably be around as long as kids like 5- states and more than 80 countries, Little year-old Owen Newcomer and his 7- League’s appeal remains little changed year-old sister, Isabella, pick up a glove. from June 6, 1939, when the eager boys Little League is in their blood - their of Lycoming Dairy and Lundy Lumber mother, grandfather and great-grandfa- met in the inaugural game. Oil the glove. ther, Dick Hauser, are alums. “We just Lace the cleats. Play ball. And maybe enjoyed being around it, and I couldn’t learn some life lessons. wait for my kids to get that experience,” ELMONT: California Chrome plays with his bridle as exercise rider Willie Delgado holds him during a “If the kids have fun playing the said their mother, Jen Newcomer, who bath after workout at Belmont Park. — AP game, the Little League field can really played Little League softball.—AP.