Turner: Expect a Triple Crown

The last living trainer of a Triple Crown winner likes Big Brown.

NEW YORK (AP) — Billy Turner stood inside the stall of one of his young fillies at Belmont Park, applying a therapeutic device to ease the pain in her back. For nearly a half-hour, the trainer worked on the filly with a simple goal in mind: A victory for Sue Me Honey before heading to Saratoga for the summer season.

Turner no longer is in thoroughbred racing’s spotlight, but when a Triple Crown is on the line, he’s an authority. The tall, lanky 68-year-old Turner is the only living trainer of a Triple Crown champion, having saddled the fiery Seattle Slew to sweep undefeated through the 1977 Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

The following year, Affirmed became the 11th and last horse to win the Triple Crown. Since then, Turner has watched 10 horses win the first two legs, only to falter in the oldest and longest race of the series, the Belmont Stakes, which will be run for the 140th time June 7.

This year, the undefeated Big Brown is the heavy favorite to become the 12th Triple Crown winner, a consensus with which Turner readily agrees.

“We’ve been watching it try to unfold for quite a few years now, and it just hasn’t happened,” Turner said. “Big Brown has the best shot at it of any horse since Spectacular Bid [in 1979]. And Spectacular Bid was a phenomenal horse.”

The Bid came into the ’79 Belmont poised to become the third consecutive Triple Crown winner and fourth in the 1970s — Secretariat started the run in 1973. But the 3-10 favorite allegedly stepped on a safety pin in his stall the morning of the race and finished third.

Big Brown also has been exceptional, winning all five of his races by a combined 39 lengths. Turner has taken notice of the ease with which Big Brown has delivered for trainer Rick Dutrow Jr., and can only wish he had it as easy with Seattle Slew.

“The thing about Slew is he wasn’t at all tractable the way Big Brown is,” Turner said. “Big Brown, he waits for what the jock says, then goes ahead and does whatever he wants him to do. When the gates opened for Slew, he was in a race and he was going to run until somebody stopped him.”

Big Brown broke from the outside No. 20 post in the Derby under Kent Desormeaux, rated off the pace in sixth place and when the field turned for home the 3-year-old colt blew away the field and cruised to a 43‚Ñ4-length win. Picture perfect.

Big Brown is cool, calm and collected. In the Preakness, against one of the weakest fields in recent history, Big Brown easily dispatched his rivals at the top of the stretch. With one flick of the reins by Desormeaux, Big Brown kicked into another gear, clinched the victory and cruised home by 51‚Ñ4 lengths.

Throughout this Triple Crown bid, Dutrow has said Big Brown is so good all he has to do is stand aside and make sure he doesn’t do anything wrong. A workout is scheduled for next Saturday, and perhaps another on the morning of the Belmont, just like the Preakness.

“All you have to do with this horse is stay out of his way,” Dutrow said.

Turner called an audible for Seattle Slew in the Belmont. He said he put two 1-mile workouts into Slew — the first time he worked the colt more than five-eighths of a mile.

“That was completely foreign to everything else I did with him,” Turner said. “I wanted to dull his speed enough so he’d get the mile-and-a-half and it turned out to be his easiest race.”

Thirty years after Affirmed, 31 years after Seattle Slew and 35 years after Secretariat, it is Big Brown who would be king.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Turner said, “and I hope it happens.”