Former Supreme rubs shoulders with Chrome’s connections

There’s a lyric in the song “Back in My Arms Again” where Diana Ross mentions the other Supremes, Mary (Wilson) and Flo (Ballard), and says “I listened once to my friends’ advice but it’s not gonna happen twice.”

Well, if she plans on betting Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, she might want to listen to Mary Wilson’s advice this time around. Because Mary has the inside track.

Wilson, who lives in Anthem in Henderson and remains a fixture in Las Vegas showrooms to this day, was having lunch in Louisville the day after the Kentucky Derby when she had a chance meeting with Steve Coburn, the colorful co-owner of Triple Crown hopeful California Chrome.

Both were sporting big hats.

“Steve said he had asked a friend to take him somewhere where he could get a nice cold beer, and it just happened to be at the same place where we having lunch,” Wilson writes in the current “It’s The Norm,” the newsletter of longtime Las Vegas celebrity publicist Norm Johnson.

“It was an amazing weekend of fast horses, big hats, mint juleps, and one party or event after another … and there I was, right in the middle of the action with the owner of the winning horse.”

Mary Wilson, who is 70, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and still looks fantastic, said she had been given a tip to bet California Chrome in the Derby but that Mark Bego, her escort and celebrity biographer, failed to get it down.

Too many juleps.

Like Diana Ross, it can be assumed she’s not planning to let it happen twice when it comes to betting the Belmont.