Columnist Ralph Siraco: Breeders’ Cup speculation already beginning to build

Ralph Siraco

Monday, May 11, 1998 | 10:50 a.m.

THERE USED TO BE a time when a particular season of the year was associated with a particular sport of the season.

Fall and winter meant football, winter and spring was basketball, spring and summer was baseball and summer to fall rounded out the playoffs.

Now, as a matter of the economics of sports or, more accurately, the big business of sports, the seasons of sports are no longer measured by Mother Nature's.

With the expansion of television coverage, the multitudes of cable channels with exclusive sports programing, an explosion of merchandising and the big-ticket media-hyped big events, no one season can hold any sport's annual session.

The boys of summer play the World Series with as much a snow-out threat as a postponement due to rain. Football begins in the dog days of August until it's Super Sunday in January of the next year. Basketball runs through holiday turkey stuffings past taking those same pounds off for the Memorial Day barbecue.

Horse racing, to a different extent, has become a wall-to-wall sports experience as well.

Longer race meets, more racing days in the week and the advent of Breeders' Cup competition has created two distinct seasons to the Sport of Kings that have overlapped to the point of a seamless racing year.

Pressed by the same economics that drives other sports, horse racing found itself needing more racing days, more races, more meets, more of everything to keep pace and stay competitive with not only those sports but also other gaming venues that compete for the gambling dollars.

The resurgence of horse racing can be closely linked to technology as well. Satellite simulcasting, Internet and telephone wagering, in addition to cable television and expanded network coverage has helped the sport churn on the endless racing merry-go-round.

So it comes as no surprise that, in the middle of its Triple Crown, experts are already looking ahead to this fall's Breeders' Cup to see how many sophomores on this Triple Crown trail will be participants or, more likely, survivors for the year-end Classic.

The roses on the victory blanket for the 124th Kentucky Derby hadn't wilted before handicapping pundits were calculating the chances -- and odds -- of winner Real Quiet to win the Triple Crown and on to the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Trainer Bob Baffert, who won his second consecutive Kentucky Derby with Real Quiet, and owner Mike Pegram, who won with his first-ever starter, were still savoring the sweet smell of those roses while others speculated a 12th Triple Crown champion.

And what about the "other" Baffert trainee? Indian Charlie, who was the talk of Louisville before his third-place finish in the Derby, can only improve off the Churchill experience. With only the Derby loss on an otherwise perfect racing record, Charlie may retake occupancy in Stall 1 of the Baffert barn if he turns the tables on Real Quiet in the Preakness Stakes. The middle jewel of the Triple Crown will contest a 16th of a mile shorter than the 1 1/4-mile Derby, and the Pimlico track may be better suited for Charlie's running style.

Nick Zito's Halory Hunter, fourth in the Derby, will give it another go for owner Rick Pitino as well as Team Lukas' Cape Town, who disappointed with a fifth in the Derby, along with newcomers Classic Cat, Basic Trainee and Hot Wells, who are expected longshots to win the Woodlawn trophy.

And, as others in the class of '98 sit on the sidelines for round two of the Triple Crown, all sophomores will be measured to the sparse handicap division for Breeders' Cup consideration.

The sport's equine head case, Coronado's Quest, continues to sit on the Preakness fence, although it is more likely he'll wind up in the Met Mile at his home track at Belmont Park later this month. The newest derby winner, Yarrow Brae, who annexed the Illinois version last Saturday and the sidelined Event Of The Year and Lil's Lad, should they return to competition from injury in time for the fall showdown, can also add new blood to the thinned lifeline of the senior division.

The comparisons will surely start on Saturday at Pimlico.

Last Saturday at the same Pimlico Racecourse, Skip Away, the handicap division's leader by virtue of his 1997 record, captured the $750,000 Pimlico Special, negotiating the same 1 3-16ths mile distance as the Preakness. Beating an overmatched but ambitious foursome, Skippy managed his fifth consecutive Grade I win, stretching back to his Jockey Gold Cup victory last October, while toting 128 pounds.

Although some may argue last year's Derby and Preakness winner Silver Charm may be the leader of the handicap division after his gutty win in the $4 million Dubai World Cup a half a world away, no one would argue that, beyond the S's (Silver Charm and Skip Away), the handicap division is void. Unless, of course, Gentlemen, who was last seen finishing last in the Santa Anita Handicap, can come back to his competitive level that saw him beat Skip Away in the 1996 Pimlico Special.

Whatever the outcome of Saturday's Preakness Stakes, the sophomore division has overlapped into the handicap division before the Triple Crown trail concludes.

Unless Real Quiet can turn the Triple Crown trick, speculation will run the gamut as the Crown meshes to the Cup.