Traitor

Traitor, one of Maryland's hopes for glory in the Kentucky Derby or Preakness, was removed from the Triple Crown trail yesterday after showing signs of wear and tear from his demanding schedule.Mary Eppler, the colt's Pimlico-based trainer, said that, after discussions with the horse's owner, Alfred G. Vanderbilt, they have decided to give Traitor time off instead of pushing him toward the spring classics. He was to have raced Saturday in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct."He will not run in the Wood or any of the Triple Crown races," Eppler said.

Traitor, a top contender for the Kentucky Derby, has resumed training after a freak accident Feb. 1 at Hialeah Park in Florida. But the week and a half of lost conditioning could jeopardize his chances of racing in the spring classics.Traitor is trained by Mary Eppler, based at Pimlico but spending the winter at Hialeah. He is owned by Alfred G. Vanderbilt, former owner of Sagamore Farm in Baltimore County.The accident occurred as Traitor walked off the Hialeah track after galloping. A horse behind him became unruly, upsetting Traitor and causing him to lunge into a railing.

Starting late but hoping for the best, Mary Eppler will saddle Traitor today for his 3-year-old debut in a non-betting race in Ocala, Fla.The race is the $100,000 Ocala Breeders' Sales Championship Stakes at the Ocala Training Center. At 1 1/16 miles for horses that passed through the sale, it is not the preferred path to the Kentucky Derby.But an accident Feb. 1 at Hialeah Park in Florida, when Traitor lunged into a railing after being spooked by another horse, set back the colt's training.

It was a long time coming, but yesterday Traitor joined the herd stampeding toward the Kentucky Derby. He won a non-betting race at a Florida training center by "a desperate head."Those were the words of Jay Friedman, an official of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co., which sponsored the $100,000 race for horses that had passed through the sale. Trained by the Pimlico-based Mary Eppler, Traitor was making his belated 3-year-old debut after recovering from a training accident last month at Hialeah Park.

For the first time since 1980, trainer D. Wayne Lukas won't have an entry in the Kentucky Derby.Lukas, who has won the last two Derbys and seven of the last eight Triple Crown races, said yesterday he will be just a spectator for the 123rd Kentucky Derby on May 3."It serves no purpose for me to try and be in the race. I think there are times in a trainer's life -- mine included -- when I wanted to be in the race. That's long past. I've been in 16 of them," he said.Lukas nominated 23 3-year-olds for the Derby.

NEW KENT COUNTY, Va. -- This time last year, Mary Eppler trained one of the top 2-year-olds in the country.Traitor had won the Grade I Futurity Stakes and finished second in the Grade I Moet Champagne Stakes -- both at Belmont Park. He was an early favorite for the Kentucky Derby.But this year wasn't kind to Traitor. A freak accident in Florida and a torn suspensory ligament forced him to the sideline shortly before the Preakness Stakes. (Traitor is back in light training; see the "On Horse Racing" column on this page.

The record of the horse's trip reads: ". roughed at the first turn . eased back . raced wide . finished strongly, but could not overtake the winner, although probably best."The horse was Native Dancer. The race was the 1953 Kentucky Derby. In Native Dancer's extraordinary career at the racetrack -- that turned into an extraordinary career in the breeding shed -- Alfred G. Vanderbilt's gray colt won 20 of 21 starts, every one except that fateful Kentucky Derby.Now Vanderbilt, 84, owns a 2-year-old colt who perhaps allows the former owner of Baltimore County's Sagamore Farm to dream again about finally standing in the winner's circle after the world's most famous race.

The dream was, is and forever will be to win the Kentucky Derby. For owners and trainers of talented 2-year-olds, who, along with all horses, officially become one year older Jan. 1, this is the time for taking those first cautious steps toward realizing that elusive dream.One Maryland-bred and two Maryland-trained colts are striding down that perilous road to the Derby.Smoke Glacken, a gray son of Two Punch, who stands at Northview Stallion Station in Cecil County, is training at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans.

Local trainer Mary Eppler confirmed yesterday that her promising 2-year-old colt Traitor will not run Oct. 26 in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Woodbine.She said the hard-running son of Cryptoclearance would spend the winter in Florida and launch his 3-year-old career there. The Florida Derby in March would be a target, she said. After that, if all goes well, the Triple Crown races are the goal."We'll put him away for the winter and hope he comes back bigger and stronger next year," she said from her barn at Pimlico.

Perhaps we've read too many John le Carre spy novels, but we thought that just about the worst thing that could happen to an intelligence agency is having a senior officer turn traitor and feed vital information to the enemy. Not to mention uncloaking agents that the other side promptly executed. At the Central Intelligence Agency, it seems, snitching on a colleague is an even greater sin. Ignoring clear warnings that Aldrich Ames was a traitor is treated at the CIA as a bureaucratic stumble to be punished by early retirement at a generous pension.

Virtue defeats talent in Traitor. Don Cheadle stars as Samir Horn, a righteous Muslim connected to Islamic extremists who are plotting to blow up scores of buses across America simultaneously. The movie, which opens tomorrow, appears designed to test prejudice levels rather than elevate threat levels. Writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff (he co-wrote The Day After Tomorrow) divides the film's storytelling between Samir and Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce), an FBI counterterrorist agent who starts tracking Samir after he lands in a Yemeni prison for selling detonators to an Islamic militant cell.

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Former dictator Augusto Pinochet was stripped of immunity yesterday in a case involving alleged abuses at an infamous torture center known as Villa Grimaldi, where Chile's new president-elect and her mother were held during Pinochet's reign almost three decades ago. Now 90 and ailing, Pinochet is expected to appeal, as he has done in several other cases in which courts have voided his immunity from prosecution. No trial of the former strongman is expected until Chile's Supreme Court gives the go-ahead.

In the month that he has been on trial for treason, Oleg D. Kalugin has spent weekends at his Ocean City condo with his daughter and 12-year-old grandson, who are visiting from Moscow. He has gone for his usual long-distance ocean swims. Back in Washington, the former KGB major general has lectured as usual on Russian politics and intelligence, tended to his consulting business and tried out the new Fresh Fields near his Silver Spring home. And occasionally, Kalugin, 67, has checked the Web for the latest word on his closed trial in Moscow, where he is represented by a lawyer with whom he has never spoken and where a three- judge panel is expected to hand down his sentence today.

Mussina the traitor for leaving, not Angelos I have a great idea. The next time the Yankees come to town, why doesn't the city of Baltimore throw Mike Mussina a parade for leaving us for New York? Led by John Eisenberg and local fools who know nothing about baseball or the concept of loyalty, let's congratulate Mussina for leaving our pathetic team and defecting to our arch-rivals for more money, glamour and hopes of championships. Instead of remaining in the city that adored him for 10 years (and would have worshiped him for another 10)

STILLWATER, N.Y. - They've given him the boot, but some wonder whether Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary War hero and American traitor, deserves more on the bicentennial anniversary of his death. Arnold, the intense and contentious general who led American rebels to victory in the crucial Battles of Saratoga in 1777, is better remembered as the nation's first important traitor. For all his wartime glory, Arnold's legacy is barely mentioned at the Saratoga National Historical Park. His only commemoration is a nameless stone monument bearing a cavalryman's high boot, erected in 1887.

NEW KENT COUNTY, Va. -- This time last year, Mary Eppler trained one of the top 2-year-olds in the country.Traitor had won the Grade I Futurity Stakes and finished second in the Grade I Moet Champagne Stakes -- both at Belmont Park. He was an early favorite for the Kentucky Derby.But this year wasn't kind to Traitor. A freak accident in Florida and a torn suspensory ligament forced him to the sideline shortly before the Preakness Stakes. (Traitor is back in light training; see the "On Horse Racing" column on this page.

For the first time since 1980, trainer D. Wayne Lukas won't have an entry in the Kentucky Derby.Lukas, who has won the last two Derbys and seven of the last eight Triple Crown races, said yesterday he will be just a spectator for the 123rd Kentucky Derby on May 3."It serves no purpose for me to try and be in the race. I think there are times in a trainer's life -- mine included -- when I wanted to be in the race. That's long past. I've been in 16 of them," he said.Lukas nominated 23 3-year-olds for the Derby.

Traitor, one of Maryland's hopes for glory in the Kentucky Derby or Preakness, was removed from the Triple Crown trail yesterday after showing signs of wear and tear from his demanding schedule.Mary Eppler, the colt's Pimlico-based trainer, said that, after discussions with the horse's owner, Alfred G. Vanderbilt, they have decided to give Traitor time off instead of pushing him toward the spring classics. He was to have raced Saturday in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct."He will not run in the Wood or any of the Triple Crown races," Eppler said.

It was a long time coming, but yesterday Traitor joined the herd stampeding toward the Kentucky Derby. He won a non-betting race at a Florida training center by "a desperate head."Those were the words of Jay Friedman, an official of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co., which sponsored the $100,000 race for horses that had passed through the sale. Trained by the Pimlico-based Mary Eppler, Traitor was making his belated 3-year-old debut after recovering from a training accident last month at Hialeah Park.

Starting late but hoping for the best, Mary Eppler will saddle Traitor today for his 3-year-old debut in a non-betting race in Ocala, Fla.The race is the $100,000 Ocala Breeders' Sales Championship Stakes at the Ocala Training Center. At 1 1/16 miles for horses that passed through the sale, it is not the preferred path to the Kentucky Derby.But an accident Feb. 1 at Hialeah Park in Florida, when Traitor lunged into a railing after being spooked by another horse, set back the colt's training.