One Down, Two to Go

In a career spanning 35 years, more than 150 major-stakes victories and $12 million in purses, Thoroughbred Trainer Woodford C. Stephens has rarely indulged himself as extravagantly as he did last week. He took off three entire days to savor the biggest win of his life: Cannonade's victory in the Kentucky Derby. "I've always wanted to win it," says Stephens, 60. "It sort of completes everything for me."

Not quite. Now, like any Derby winner, Cannonade has a shot at racing's Triple Crown, and Stephens would surely like to claim the big prize. The next step is Saturday's Preakness at Pimlico. "I wish the race were the day after tomorrow," announced Stephens after examining Cannonade. "He has recovered from the Derby incredibly fast."

The Preakness may be another Balaklava charge like the Derby. Though Cannonade is the favorite because of his Derby win, his slow time of 2:04 on a fast track at Churchill Downs was not convincing to rival horsemen. The shorter course and sharper turns may even encourage a few additional trainers to enter their sprinters.

For Stephens, Cannonade's campaign was not the only job last week. Wiry and fit, he roamed around his "public stable" at New York's Belmont Park, keeping an eye on 35 other horses that belong to nine different owners and on 32 employees ranging from grooms and exercise boys to a bookkeeper. "Not a day goes by," he says, "that I don't look at each and every one of my horses, put my hands on them, make a decision about them, worry about them." According to John Gaines, owner of the farm where Cannonade was foaled, "Woody's hands are finely tuned antennae. It's a beautiful sight to watch him run his hands over a horse's knee or tendon."

In the spectrum of racing trainers, Stephens falls somewhere between the late Max Hirsch of King Ranch, a taskmaster who might run nine horses into the ground to produce one Triple Crown champion like Assault, and Rokeby Stable's Elliott Burch, whose patience with a thoroughbred is almost limitless. Possessing what Gaines calls "the intuitive knowledge of a great horseman," Stephens tailors training routines to fit each of his horses. With Cannonade, for instance, he has concentrated on long gallops, while scheduling generous periods of rest to keep the horse fresh.

Woody Stephens started amassing his racing wisdom when he was 13. The son of a tobacco farmer in the hamlet of Midway, Ky., Stephens broke his first yearling in 1927, and a year later dropped out of high school to sign a five-year contract as an apprentice jockey. When he grew too big to ride, Stephens turned to training, scoring his first victory in 1940. His total involvement with all facets of racing includes even horse matchmaking--it was Stephens' idea to mate Bold Bidder and Queen Sucree in 1970. The product was named Cannonade. To this day he still checks the feed supply and water buckets in each stall before heading home. "It's sort of reflex action by now," he says. "It comes from the days when filling the pails at night was my job."

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