Days Of Wine and Bloody Noses

By Tom Callahan

The "most exciting two minutes in sports" ran over this year by more than three seconds. But Alysheba and Bet Twice bumped and bobbled enough in the homestretch to make last week's garden-variety Kentucky Derby richly exciting. And every party to Alysheba's three-quarter-length victory had estimable charm.

Both Jockey Chris McCarron, 32, and Trainer Jack Van Berg, 50, are accomplished men who lacked only racing's crowning credit. McCarron felt blessed to be on any horse in any race. Last October he broke his leg four ways in a fearsome crack-up at Santa Anita, and when Alysheba commenced clipping Bet Twice's heels with three-sixteenths of a mile to go, the rider looked sure to take another fall. "I thought I was gone," he said. Somehow McCarron was still astride and suddenly even ahead. "C'mon, wire," he prayed. "Quick."

Van Berg is a second-generation "king of the claimers," whose father Marion lived by the dry motto "We make our living out of other people's mistakes." In pure numbers of victories, the son has logged eight national training championships, including in 1986. But of late the cheaper achievements have meant less to him than the classic challenges. Van Berg wept last week for his special horse and for his late father. "There's no feeling in the world," he murmured, "like winning the Kentucky Derby."

Bloodlines ran everywhere in the race. Owner Dorothy Scharbauer and her husband Clarence have for the most part been cattle ranchers in Midland, Texas. But her father Fred Turner Jr. was a devout horse lover who had Derby Winner Tomy Lee (Bill Shoemaker's old friend) in 1959. Another return to glory amounted to an end to laughter: the breeder of Alysheba is Preston Madden of Lexington's Hamburg Place, the hors d'oeuvres center of the bluegrass. During the first 25 years of this century, John E. Madden was known as the "wizard of the turf." He bred five Derby winners, including Sir Barton. But the grandson Preston and his flamboyant wife Anita have been famed solely as champion party throwers. This year's bash howled as usual, but the door prize the next afternoon was a little dignity restored.

Alydar felt better too. Alysheba's renowned sire, the only horse ever to finish second in all of the Triple Crown races, stands at leafy Calumet not 50 feet from his old tormentor Affirmed. Guess whose sexual favors are worth $350,000 and who has trouble looking whom in the eye now. The bay colt Alysheba, 8-1 in the Derby, is an honest horse but has a hard time keeping to a straight course. In the Blue Grass Stakes nine days earlier, Alysheba finished first but was demoted for swerving in the stretch. Deep thinkers who drop in on this sport once a year fretted for his confidence all week until Van Berg gently pointed out, "He doesn't know he was disqualified. He thinks he won the race."

The 2-1 favorite, Demons Begone, came home with a bloody nose and a heavy heart in an ambulance. A field horse, Avies Copy, finished third. The best or the most stubborn of them will reconnoiter next week at the Preakness. Then Belmont Specialist Woody Stephens should have someone fresh waiting for the last mile and a half. The season has started.