Post Draw Puts Brown On the Rail at Belmont

In a short ceremony over scrambled eggs and steaming cups of coffee at Belmont Park, the post positions for the Belmont Stakes were drawn yesterday. It must be done; horses have to start from somewhere. With only 10 horses in the gate, position is not as crucial as it is in the crowded Kentucky Derby. The run to the first turn is long, as is the race. There’s time to sort it all out.At the same time, the inside spot is not ideal for Triple Crown contender Big Brown. As the horses settle in to the run, searching for a spot, it’s like a 40-mile-an-hour game of musical chairs. The horse with no tactical speed, or the one gawking at the crowd, won’t get a seat. Lesser racehorses are always victims of the way a race plays out. Better horses run professionally: The jockey nudges him here or there, and the horse responds. Unfortunately, sitting on the inside leaves Big Brown with fewer opportunities, fewer directions to go, and that’s what Kent Desormeaux meant when he said that the position “takes me a little out of control.”However, he doesn’t seem worried: “I’m ready to make history.” After all, they ran out of the inauspicious 20 hole at Churchill Downs, from which only one horse has ever won. Desormeaux found a spot on the outside, and he ran the whole race wide, which turned out to be a workable position for Big Brown. All indications are that the horse’s speed, his ability to accelerate quickly and maneuver, should get him to the spot he needs. There are, of course, several worst-case scenarios.A lot can go wrong in a horse race, and Belmont offers up many opportunities for misfortune, many opportunities for horses to show their flaws. Lesser horses tend to be those who have a high proclivity for botching a race, but over this mile and a half, the hidden flaws in good horses often are realized.There are three key things that can make or break a run in the test of champions, each of which can be influenced by a horse’s spot in the gate, and none of which broke in Big Brown’s favor.It’s important to save ground, which means you don’t want to get hung on the outside. It’s a whoppingly long race, and no horse needs it to be longer by running on the outside around the huge, sweeping turns of Belmont Park. The inside post would seemingly help Big Brown accomplish this, but Casino Drive’s position is better, because he’s right in the middle, able to go wherever he needs to be. Big Brown might have to pull back at the start and go outside to get a clear path.It’s important to settle into your pace. If the horse goes rank in the early stages and fights with his jockey to run faster, or gets ruffled by another runner, he will waste himself running badly at the start and won’t have anything left to get home. I remember watching Funny Cide run by the grandstands the first time, pulling and not settling into stride, and going into the turn on the lead three or four wide. I sat back down; the race was over. Here again, the advantage goes to Casino Drive, because he won’t have the rail next to him, so he’s not likely to get pushed around, boxed in, or crushed on the run to the first turn.You must watch out for the other horses. For instance, if a horse finds himself next to a speedier contestant, he might try, against his best interest, to run with that one at a pace to which he’s not suited (which was what happened to Smarty Jones in the middle of the race four years ago). This doesn’t look like a danger for Big Brown. It’s more likely that Tale of Ekati would jump up into the race following Da’Tara.Another way that danger sets up is when a horse gets put on the rail with another horse to his right and starts racing too soon. This is a real possibility, and a real danger for Big Brown. Winning the Belmont Stakes is typically about saving as much of your race as you can for as long as possible. Steve Cauthen, up in the irons 30 years ago when Affirmed won, tried to rope Alydar into this blunder. Cauthen took the lead, put Affirmed a couple of paths off the rail, and slowed the pace down. He left a hole on the inside, inviting Alydar and Jorge Velasquez to bottle themselves up. In a video released last week commemorating the 30th anniversary of that legendary Belmont Stakes, Cauthen said that he kept Affirmed outside like that for two reasons. He wanted to run slow and convince the horse for as long as he could that they weren’t even running a race — just out for a jog, nothing going on, stay calm. That part worked. But Velasquez and Alydar did not take the invitation to run on the rail. The two of them waited until the stretch turn to really start racing.Da’Tara will take the lead early; both Big Brown and Casino Drive will be just off the pace. The first mile will be spent setting the race up, jockeying for position. If Big Brown finds himself on the rail behind Da’Tara, with Casino Drive flanking him, the race will not be his to determine. He will be at the mercy of the combined influences of Da’Tara and Casino Drive.What if Da’Tara pushes the pace and sucks Big Brown into something, pressured further by Casino Drive breathing down his neck? It’s not an enviable spot for Big Brown. He will have been running the race those two want him to run, not his own. Will he be able to fire when the time comes? Can he split horses when Casino Drive makes his move and get past the flagging Da’Tara?I think he will. What happens next? Will running a race out of his control (for the first time) put him off his run?After Casino Drive and Big Brown put Da’Tara away, probably on the backstretch in the approach to the second turn, the two will engage in a slowly building duel, opening it up one notch at a time. They’ll be flying on the stretch. There won’t be any more traffic. The closers running up to duel it out for the show money will be 10 lengths back. It’ll just be the two of them.mwatman@nysun.com

Post Draw Puts Brown On the Rail at Belmont

Post Draw Puts Brown On the Rail at Belmont

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