Group Seeking Belmont Clover

They laughed when Barry Irwin, Jeff Siegel and their Clover Racing Stable partners sat down to watch Martial Law run in the 1989 Santa Anita Handicap. The colt’s owners had paid a supplemental fee of $25,000 to get Martial Law into the race.

Martial Law, a 50-1 shot, won the Big ‘Cap and earned $550,275 of the $1-million purse.

In the fall of that year, Clover Racing and its partner, Barbara LaCroix, ran Prized in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Gulfstream Park.

Prized was the sixth betting choice and had never run a race on grass, yet he won by a head and earned $900,000.

Now Irwin, Siegel and their partners will run My Memoirs, who will be 15-1 or more, in today’s $764,800 Belmont Stakes.

The 3-year-old colt who has won only three of eight starts in mostly minor races in Great Britain.

“Why not?” Siegel said of putting the colt in a 1 1/2-mile dirt race. “In our minds, there are only two really good 3-year-olds in the country this year, and one of them, Alydeed, isn’t running. A.P. Indy is the other one, and he’s going to be tough, because he’s really looked the part based on what I’ve seen this week. But if you think only one horse in the race is definitely better than yours, it’s worth a shot.”

So My Memoirs’ dozen or more owners--collectively known as Team Valor--are risking a $50,000 supplemental fee, plus $10,000 in entry and starting costs, to see if their English-bred can beat A.P. Indy, the 6-5 morning-line favorite, and Pine Bluff, the Preakness winner three weeks ago, in the windup of the Triple Crown series. To make money today, Team Valor must finish at least third, which is worth $91,776.

Martial Law, who was English-raced before two prep races that preceded the 1989 Santa Anita Handicap, was bought by Clover Racing for $60,000. His victory at Santa Anita was probably the biggest for a Pennsylvania-bred until Lil E. Tee won this year’s Kentucky Derby.

My Memoirs, picked out by Andy Smith, the Londoner who also found Martial Law for Clover, didn’t come as cheap.

“We buy wholesale and sell retail,” said Irwin, 48, a former columnist for the Daily Racing Form. “We pay one price and then we syndicate for another. This horse is being syndicated for $500,000.”

Siegel, 41, is a newspaper handicapper and co-publisher of a racing newsletter. Irwin is the manager of Clover Racing and Siegel calls the shots for Team Valor, with both of them retaining a 10% interest in My Memoirs.

It was Siegel’s idea that My Memoirs run in the Belmont. The colt will be saddled today by Englishman Richard Hannon, who also trained Don’t Forget Me, the sire of My Memoirs. In 1987, Don’t Forget Me became only the second horse to win both the English and the Irish 2,000 Guineas. My Memoirs will be ridden for the first time by Jerry Bailey, who won last year’s Belmont with Hansel.

Team Valor bought My Memoirs a couple of days after he won while carrying 128 pounds over 1 1/4 miles in England on May 7.

“The Chester track where he ran has tight turns,” Irwin said. “He had a lot of trouble on the first turn, and he was last with three-eighths of a mile to go. The stretch is an eighth of a mile long, and he was second-last at the top of the stretch.”

Jockey John Reid’s plan had been to set the pace in the Chester race.

“I did not think we would get round the first bend,” he said. “Turning for home, the best I was hoping for was third, and that only if I stayed on. But he suddenly sprouted wings and flew.”

My Memoirs, who will carry 126 pounds, the same as the 10 other starters in the Belmont, worked an untimed 1 1/8 miles over an all-weather surface in England on May 28.

“He worked in company with two horses and followed them around, getting the feel of dirt thrown in his face, then he passed his workmates entering the stretch,” Irwin said.

After a 17-hour trip, My Memoirs arrived in New York on Wednesday night. He has been stabled at Aqueduct, about 10 miles from Belmont Park, to complete quarantine requirements and will be vanned to Belmont about seven hours before the race.

Should My Memoirs or Cristofori, the French horse, score an upset in the Belmont today, comparisons will quickly be made with Go And Go, the Irish horse who came to New York in 1990 and scored a surprising victory.

Tom Bohannan, who trains Pine Bluff, reflected on Go And Go’s victory here and suggests that it was a fluke.

“Go And Go beat a bunch of tired horses,” Bohannan said. “What’s he done since then? I think he’s standing at stud in New York someplace, for $7,500.”

Horse Racing Notes

Only two supplementals--Coastal in 1979 and Temperence Hill in 1980--have won the Belmont. . . . Asked about A.P. Indy’s No. 1 post, trainer Neil Drysdale said: “There is nothing I can do about the draw.” . . . Drysdale trained Prized for Clover Racing. . . . A.P. Indy cost $2.9 million as a yearling, the highest auction price paid in the country that year, and his owner, Tomonori Tsurumaki, paid $2 million for another horse in the same sale. That horse, A.P. Jet, might run in the New Zealand Cup and is being considered for either the Breeders’ Cup Sprint or the Mile at Gulfstream Park on Oct. 31. “A.P. Jet has won more than a million dollars,” Drysdale said. “Of course in Japan, that might not be a lot of money.”

Tom Bohannan, trainer of Pine Bluff, has been critical of the track at Belmont Park. “They’ve done very little to maintain the surface here,” said Bohannan, who is stabled at Belmont. “I’m disheartened and disappointed about it. They’ve sealed the track even when there was no hint of rain. Joe King (the track superintendent) is a figment of the imagination.” Told about Bohannan’s remarks, Belmont’s executive vice president, Jerry Lawrence, said: “That’s the only complaint I’ve heard about. It’s not fair to the people who spend a lot of late hours working on this track. Maybe the pressure of a big race is getting to him.”

Prospectors Delite, winner of the one-mile Acorn at Belmont on May 23, will face the next seven finishers in that race in the $200,000 Mother Goose for 3-year-old fillies Sunday. Pleasant Stage, who was second in the Acorn, is also running in the 1 1/8-mile Mother Goose, along with Easy Now, Turnback The Alarm, Vivano, Queen Of Triumph and Totemic. . . . In Sunday’s $150,000 Early Times Manhattan Handicap at Belmont, the high weight at 123 pounds will be Sky Classic. The rest of the field for the 1 1/4-mile grass race: Tees Prospect, Colchis Island, Roman Envoy, Maxigroom, Honest Ensign, Fourstars Allstar, Leger Cat, Fraise, Three Coins Up, Solar Splendor and Captive Tune.

With the Belmont track listed as sloppy Friday, the 11-horse field for the $75,000 Jaipur Stakes was reduced to five because of scratches and favored To Freedom scored a six-length victory under Julie Krone. . . . More rain is predicted for today.