WHAT A DAY IT WAS RUNAWAY GROOM SHOCKED 'EM ALL.(Sports)

Byline: Keith Marder Staff writer

The Triple Crown races in 1982 didn't prove diddly, and the Breeders' Cup was still a fantasy in the mind of John Gaines.

Ten years ago, the Travers was supposed to settle the 3-year-old mess.

Here you had them. The three winners of the three classic races.

But the Belmont winner ran hurt. The one from the Preakness didn't rate well enough, and the other was a one-race wonderhorse who skipped the Preakness after winning a mediocre Kentucky Derby.

That's right. The three winners of the three Triple Crown races duke it out for 1 1/4 miles under a dismal gray sky.

Instead of a divisional leader stepping forward, the Big Three were trampled by an unknown animal.

Runaway Groom, bred in Canada and owned by a man from Schenectady, came flying down the middle of the track and stunned the racing world.

But this is much more than a score for the little guy. There was a lot of stuff going around the 1982 Travers.

For example:

The favorite, Conquistador Cielo, was running with a sore ankle, which forced him to …