Calumet

LAUREL -- Alydar, famous as the consistent but narrow loser to Affirmed throughout the 1978 Triple Crown series, was humanely destroyed yesterday morning at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., after suffering a second life-threatening injury.He first was injured when he kicked the door of his stall Tuesday and suffered a mid-shaft transverse fracture of the cannon bone of his right hind leg.The fracture ran across the bone and was halfway between the ankle and the hock, which is the major joint midway up the leg.Drs.

Next to Allen Murray's senior picture in the 1951 Havre de Grace High School yearbook were the words: Calumet Farm North. That was Murray's ambition a half century ago, to operate a horse farm like the famed Calumet nursery in Kentucky. Today, Allen and his wife, Audrey, 66, will entertain as many as 250 guests at their picturesque Murmur Farm in Darlington. The occasion is a showing of their seven stallions, including exciting newcomers Disco Rico and Our Emblem. From humble beginnings in the late 1950s, when they hauled horses in a converted beer truck, the Murrays have built Murmur into one of Maryland's leading horse farms.

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The stakes rose for Calumet Farm yesterday.An unidentified group bid $32.5 million for the farm and all its stallion interests, well above the $26.27 million offer that surfaced last week.But within a few hours of the second offer, Mutual Benefit Life, one of Calumet's main creditors, took the first step toward foreclosing on the farm."At these prices there won't be anything left for anybody," Henry Kinser, attorney for Mutual Benefit, said about the offers for the farm.

How could it be? How could a single moment be so splendid and awful? Sum up all that is grand and tragic about a place? Can there be a moment of such profound irony anywhere other than in a Hollywood script?The answer is yes. It happened when Strike the Gold crossed the finish line ahead of 15 horses at Churchill Downs on May 4, winning the Kentucky Derby. Splendid, awful, grand, tragic -- the victory was all that to Calumet Farm, the horse fame to which all aspired for so long.It sent a message to everyone in racing that Calumet, which bred Strike the Gold and owned him for two years, still had a knack for producing champions.

LAUREL -- Peter Pugh pulls on his red baseball cap with the blue lettering that spells "Calumet Farm," and hops into his pickup truck."You wanna know what really makes me mad? People that dump this farm," the 39-year-old trainer said."I hear it all the time -- 'hey, have you got paid yet?' -- stuff like that. They would be so lucky to have even one son of Alydar standing in their shedrow."The litany goes on, ever since the world-renowned farm, the farm that is synonymous in this country with horse racing and Kentucky bluegrass, filed for bankruptcy on July 11.A week earlier Pugh shipped into Laurel with the bulk of what is left of the Calumet Farm racing string -- 10 horses, including two sons of Alydar, named Joy Maker and Aly Fresco; Beautiful Gold, a daughter of champion sire Mr. Prospector out of Calumet's champion filly, Before Dawn, and seven other royally-bred, though heavily leveraged, horses.

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Towering sycamores line the approach, pregnant with buds. Gangly yearlings graze on the bluegrass, close by their mares. Business is brisk in the breeding sheds. Spring has come to Calumet Farm, 800 of the most troubled yet sacred acres in thoroughbred racing. A new farm manager, who has visions of silver trophies and blankets of roses, has been hired. A few promising 2-year-olds are in training, raising hopes that the long fall from the sport's pinnacle has ended.

Calumet, Mich. -- Copper is the metal pennies are made of. It isn't as glamorous as gold or silver, but it certainly made a lot of people rich here on the Keweenaw Peninsula.A half-dozen years before California's famed Gold Rush, the discovery of copper here in 1843 set off an enormous mineral boom. Thousands of immigrants, entrepreneurs and camp followers flocked to Keweenaw. Mines were dug, cities and towns established, roads and railroads constructed, ports dredged, fortunes made and grand homes built.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Cigar is back on the track at Belmont Park for the first time since he won the Massachusetts Handicap two weeks ago with a bruised heel. He is merely jogging, but is being pointed toward more serious work later this week and, if everything seems sound, toward the special $1 million race that has been offered by Arlington Park in Chicago.The Arlington race, which would be run at a time chosen by Cigar's handlers, probably would be scheduled on July 13 or 14, giving Cigar about one month until his next scheduled race, the Pacific Classic at Del Mar in California on Aug. 10.The 6-year-old has a winning streak of 15 races and he needs one more to match the modern record set by Calumet Farm's Citation in 1948.

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Two veterinarians who attended to Alydar in his final hours have disputed renewed insinuations that the horse's injury was not accidental.An article in the Nov. 16 Sports Illustrated is the most recent to raise questions that the injury, which resulted in Alydar's death, was caused deliberately so Calumet Farm could collect $36.5 million in insurance in an effort to salvage its desperate financial situation.Dr. William Baker and Dr. Larry Bramlage, who performed surgery on Alydar in November 1990 after the horse was found in his stall with a broken leg, said those insinuations are ridiculous.

Baseball California Angels -- Activated P Chuck Finley from the 15-day DL. Placed P Don Robinson on the 15-day DL.Kansas City Royals -- Assigned 2B Terry Shumpert to Triple-A Omaha. Optioned P Hector Wagner to Omaha. Recalled P Curt Young from Omaha.National Association -- Announced that the Charlotte Knights will join the International League in 1993.CollegesLoyola -- Announced the following soccer players have signed letters of intent: Bob Ballweg, Metuchen, N.J.; Mike Barger, Fallston; David Briles, Bowie; Will Cirrincione, Silver Spring; Chris Doyle, Brunswick; Ari Edelman, South Orange, N.J.; Mark Harrison, Palm Harbor, Fla.; Darren Hawkes, Maplewood, N.J.; James Oh, Baltimore; Brian Petersen, Severna Park; Brendan Stach, Selden, N.Y.Maryland -- signed Nemanja Petrovic, a 6-10, 235-pound native of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, a letter of intent for basketball.