Belmont Draw Short On Names, Long on Talent

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The New York Sun

As spring stretches toward summer, we come to the third act of the annual Triple Crown trail. It’s been rough traveling this year, with each of the first two races providing dramatic, action packed, uplifting, and heart wrenching stories.

We started in Kentucky on the first Saturday in May with a generation of incredibly promising colts, easily the most competitive Derby field in years, and we came out of it thinking that we had a superhorse. It was a glorious moment for racing – the sun was shining on us. But our hero, Barbaro, shattered his leg just yards into Preakness and darkened that day. (Recent reports have it that he continues to mend, and although it will be months before he’s truly out of the woods, people are guardedly optimistic about his recovery.) The lightly raced, regally bred Bernardini had the wind at his back in the Preakness, and dominated the rest of the field in Baltimore. His victory was a stunner, though it was understandably overshadowed by Barbaro’s injury.

Add Bernardini’s name to the long list of defections, including all the horses that ran at short odds in Kentucky: Sweetnorthernsaint, Lawyer Ron, Brother Derek. So what does that leave for the closing act? What drama will the Belmont Stakes add to this weird, rough year?

Hopefully none.

The $1 million dollar, Grade 1, 1 1/2 mile Belmont Stakes, the oldest leg of the Triple Crown and New York racing’s biggest event of the year, goes off on Saturday with a solid field of 12 horses. This is the largest field since Lemon Drop Kid got up under the wire in 1999 (the same year that Charismatic’s bid for the Triple Crown ended in injury in the final strides of the Belmont Stakes). It’s a competitive race, with a lot of value for bettors and a lot of good horses at good prices.

What we should expect – and what I’m really looking forward to, what I think we all really need – is a respectable race with no madness, no tragedy, no soaring melodrama, just pure, true racing.

It would be a fitting coda to the Derby Trail, because so called “true” racing is what Belmont Park is all about. The post positions have been set, and while they certainly help us to understand how the race is going to unfold, they don’t have as much bearing on the outcome of the race as they do elsewhere because Belmont Park is big – really, really big. Most tracks have an oval that’s a mile in length, but at Belmont the oval is a mile and a half.

Not only is it long, it’s wide. The turns are sweeping. The first run by the grandstand to the clubhouse turn is generous. All of this combines to make the track “true.” At Belmont, around two turns, it’s all about the horse. Traffic or track bias does not get you to the winner’s circle. If you get hung wide around the first turn, it’s not because of where you were in the gate, it’s because your horse is rank or intractable. If you win at Belmont over 1 1/2 miles, there should be no doubt that yours is the best horse.

You can never remove the element of clumsy luck from horseracing, but out at Belmont they certainly gave it the old college try. What they came up with is idiosyncratic – the track still has quirks, they’re just specific to Belmont.

Expect High Finance and Double Galore to go to the front of field, and to lead the horses around the first turn, which is sticky because the track is long enough that it’s rarely used. When those two pacesetters get onto the backstretch and look out at what Jerry Bailey once called a run like the coast of Florida, they’ll be setting an honest enough pace. High Finance just won a one-mile allowance race at Belmont, and he set the pace the whole way, charting fractions of 46 3/5 and 1:10 4/5.After a mile of that, somewhere on the back stretch, the two leaders will start to fade. It’s just too long of a race for them, and neither really belongs in this company, or running this distance.

It certainly seems that can’t help but think that the soggy weather and the and the 30% chance of rain on Belmont Day are going to give us a wet track. Which is going to help the horses closer to the pace, rather than the deep closers, Steppenwolfer and Jazil.

The favorite, Todd Pletcher-trained Bluegrass Cat, will be right there, as will Bob Baffert’s Wood Memorial victor Bob and John. Jazil and Steppenwolfer will be closing, however, and Bluegrass Cat and Bob and John will have their work cut out for them holding them off.

Add to the mix Pletcher’s Sunriver, just off a great victory at Belmont in the May 20 Peter Pan Stakes. He’ll likely be sitting in fifth waiting to strike. Maybe Hemingway’s Key will finally figure out what he’s supposed to do and run up to trainer Nick Zito’s expectations. Maybe the European import Oh So Awesome will use his experience over longer distances and kick into gear.

Yes indeed, the odds are good, the horses are good. The Belmont Stakes has set up to be a great race and, thankfully, nothing more. Just horseracing, please, without the strum und drang.

Mr. Watman is the author of “Race Day: A Spot on the Rail With Max Watman” (Ivan R. Dee).


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