Prairie Bayou

If he played baseball, he would be a catcher. A good one. Tough. Consistent. Professional. Back there on his knees, grinding it out day after day, week after week, month after month. That's Prairie Bayou."He's the most honest 3-year-old of them all," said Tom Bohannan, trainer of the chestnut gelding who won the Preakness yesterday with one of the game, driving stretch runs that have become the horse's signature.If he played football, he would be an offensive lineman. A good one. Silent. Underappreciated.

Dr. George Mundy has no illusions about his constant presence in the barns at Pimlico this week. He is not a savior."We're just trying to make sure that we're doing as much as is humanly possible," he said yesterday.Sometimes, most times, even that won't be enough. Sometimes, most times, a horse offers no warning before it breaks down in a race. Prairie Bayou was a portrait of soundness until he took a bad step and shattered his leg in the Belmont a year ago. Racetrackers will tell you that such matters are up to the racing gods, and you do have to wonder.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Prairie Bayou is listed by Don LaPlace, the track oddsmaker at Belmont Park, as the heavy favorite at 8-5 odds to win tomorrow's Belmont Stakes.But the horse hasn't scared away much opposition.A field of 14, tied for the second largest in the 125-year history of the race, was entered yesterday. A record 15 horses started in 1983. The 1875 Belmont also drew 14.2& "Quite unusual," said Mack Miller,trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero, whose winning chances weren't enhanced by the bulky field.

John Ed Anthony was in position to make history this year at the Preakness Stakes, but instead of attempting to become the first thoroughbred owner in 112 years to win the race three straight times, he will not even attend the race Saturday at Pimlico Race Course.Mr. Anthony's powerful Loblolly Stable not only failed to produce a horse worthy of competing in the Triple Crown series this year, but soon will cease to exist.Mr. Anthony, 55, stood at the pinnacle of the sport a year ago, when he joined Calumet Farm and Harry Payne Whitney as the only owners to win back-to-back Preaknesses in the 20th century.

Triumph mixed with tragedy at the 118th Preakness Stake yesterday.Prairie Bayou, a chestnut gelding with a heart of steel, won the 1 3/16-mile race in 1 minute, 56 3/5 seconds before 85,495 at Pimlico Race Course.But the bright, beautiful day ended with the announcement that Union City, a bay colt who pulled up after breaking the sesamoid bones in his right front ankle, was humanely destroyed."There was no decision to be made as far as trying to save him," said Union City trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who was near tears.

Prairie Bayou escaped a near brush with disaster yesterday and won the first Preakness Stakes in modern times in which a horse suffered a fatal injury. The death of Union City, who had to be humanely destroyed after fracturing sesamoid bones in his right front ankle, shrouded the achievement of Loblolly Stable, which seems jinxed in the Kentucky Derby , but won the Preakness for the second time in two years. The race also marked the defeat of Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero, who finished fifth and squelched any chance of a 1993 Triple Crown winner.

Prairie Bayou escaped a near brush with disaster yesterday and won the first Preakness Stakes in modern times in which a horse suffered a fatal injury.The death of Union City, who had to be humanely destroyed after fracturing sesamoid bones in his right front ankle, shrouded the achievement of Loblolly Stable, which seems jinxed in the Kentucky Derby, but won the Preakness for the second time in two years. The race also marked the defeat of Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero, who finished fifth and squelched any chance of a 1993 Triple Crown winner.

What trainer Tom Bohannan likes most about Prairie Bayou is the horse's honesty.That's honesty, as in an honest day's work. And that was what Prairie Bayou gave yesterday in winning the Preakness."

Mike Smith had just given away the first car he ever won and missed his flight home.But he smiled broadly, asked for someone to send him down a beer and posed for pictures with his family.Life couldn't be better for the man who rode his first Triple Crown winner yesterday in the Preakness.He was going to spend the night in Baltimore and "sit down, gloat a little, smile and talk it over with Tom [Bohannan, Prairie Bayou trainer]."At first, Smith tried to make his winning ride aboard the 2-1 favorite Prairie Bayou seem ever so simple.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Mike Smith described the events of the past weekend this way:"Horse racing is a sport of ups and downs. Well, I've just experienced two of the worst downs in my career."On Friday, the 27-year-old jockey looked ready to launch himself as the front-runner for an Eclipse Award, emblematic of being tops in his profession.He had an excellent chance to achieve a riding first and win two $1 million bonuses on horses that were heavy favorites to win each of their races -- Prairie Bayou, the 8-5 program pick and 2.70-1 betting choice in the Belmont Stakes, and Lure, the 3-5 actual betting favorite in yesterday's Early Times Manhattan Stakes.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- As Julie Krone underwent the first of two operations to reconstruct her broken right ankle, the fall racing season returned to Belmont and with it the top thoroughbreds in the nation, bent on continuing their Saratoga battles for undecided '93 honors.It will take at least half a year, but Krone will ride again, said Dr. Frank Arisota, director of orthopedics at Staten Island University Hospital, who performed yesterday's operation. Krone ranked second in the jockey standings when she was injured in a spill at Saratoga Monday.

Despite the leg fractures that cost Prairie Bayou his life in the Belmont Stakes, the horse's owner said yesterday that he thinks it would be "a terrible mistake" to change the timing or distances of the Triple Crown races."

THIS was a sad year for horse racing's Triple Crown. No horse dominated all three races. There was little suspense. The year will be remembered not for Julie Krone's becoming the first woman to win a Triple Crown race (a splendid accomplishment), but for Preakness winner Prairie Bayou's tragic breakdown in the gloom at Belmont.Horse racing fans looked in vain for a Sunday Silence, an Affirmed, a Secretariat. There was no odds-on favorite, not even a sentimental favorite. All three of the Triple Crown events lacked the drama and excitement of the splendid match race between War Admiral and Seabiscuit in Baltimore Nov. 1, 1938.

You don't have to be a horseman all your life, as 70-year-old former U.S. Senator Daniel B. Brewster has been, to know the answer.Neither do you have to be as well-traveled as ABC-TV's Jim McKay -- and McKay, in addition to broadcasting Triple Crown races for many years, owns a small Maryland stable of thoroughbreds.And you don't have to be a seasoned track official like Lenny Hale, the Maryland Jockey Club's president for racing, to be able to explain the tragic injuries that resulted in the humane destroying of Union City and Prairie Bayou in this year's Preakness and Belmont Stakes, respectively.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Mike Smith described the events of the past weekend this way:"Horse racing is a sport of ups and downs. Well, I've just experienced two of the worst downs in my career."On Friday, the 27-year-old jockey looked ready to launch himself as the front-runner for an Eclipse Award, emblematic of being tops in his profession.He had an excellent chance to achieve a riding first and win two $1 million bonuses on horses that were heavy favorites to win each of their races -- Prairie Bayou, the 8-5 program pick and 2.70-1 betting choice in the Belmont Stakes, and Lure, the 3-5 actual betting favorite in yesterday's Early Times Manhattan Stakes.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- The 1993 Triple Crown might well be remembered as the year of the double tragedy.Just as soon as winning jockey Julie Krone, the first woman rider ever to win a Triple Crown race, crossed the finish line aboard long shot Colonial Affair in the Belmont Stakes yesterday, trainer Tom Bohannan was spotted running frantically across the Belmont Park infield.Just on the other side of the track, Prairie Bayou, the once durable gelding that Bohannan trained just three weeks ago to win the Preakness Stakes for the Loblolly Stable, stood hopelessly on three legs, his fourth leg dangling as the result of a compound fracture.

There might not be a Triple Crown winner in 1993, but Loblolly Stable has an excellent chance on Saturday in the Belmont Stakes to pull off another unique double.When Prairie Bayou duplicated the 1992 feat of his stablemate, Pine Bluff, and won the Preakness two weeks ago, the Arkansas outfit of John Ed Anthony and his ex-wife, Mary Lynn Dudley, became the first owner-breeder in 45 years to win back-to-back runnings of the Pimlico classic.The last time a stable achieved such a feat was in 1947-48 when Calumet Farm won consecutive Preaknesses with Faultless and Citation.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- The 1993 Triple Crown might well be remembered as the year of the double tragedy.Just as soon as winning jockey Julie Krone, the first woman rider ever to win a Triple Crown race, crossed the finish line aboard long shot Colonial Affair in the Belmont Stakes yesterday, trainer Tom Bohannan was spotted running frantically across the Belmont Park infield.Just on the other side of the track, Prairie Bayou, the once durable gelding that Bohannan trained just three weeks ago to win the Preakness Stakes for the Loblolly Stable, stood hopelessly on three legs, his fourth leg dangling as the result of a compound fracture.

Union City's final race ended in a horse ambulance parked on a dusty lot by a maintenance shop some 100 yards from the starting gate of the 118th Preakness Stakes.Inside the white van, a covered 20-foot metal stall, Dr. Dan Dreyfuss prepared the lethal injection that quickly would extinguish the life of the 3-year-old colt, whose right front ankle was bent, broken and bloody. The veterinarian emptied a 100 cc bottle of sodium pentabarbitol into three syringes. He then took a needle and stuck it into the horse's neck, on the left side, finding the jugular vein.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Mike Smith does great horse impressions.The 27-year-old jockey widens his eyes, presses a finger on each side of his head and shows a group of writers how Prairie Bayou flattens his ears during competition.He doesn't regard the animals as money machines, a friend said. But that's what a couple of these four-footed athletes could prove to be this weekend at Belmont Park.Two of Smith's mounts, Preakness winner Prairie Bayou, the program pick in the Belmont Stakes today, and Lure, the heavy favorite tomorrow in the Early Times Manhattan Stakes, could each clinch a $1 million bonus.