Picks, Plays, and Thanks
Belmont Stakes day picks, up on Hello Race Fans.
Kevin Martin, of Colin’s Ghost, asked five handicappers how they would bet the Belmont Stakes with $100. Valerie Grash offers some pedigree plays that hold up even with I’ll Have Another’s sudden retirement.
As for that, like everyone else on hearing the news, I was disappointed. What a letdown! But, like everyone else, I can’t see that trainer Doug O’Neill and owner Paul Reddam did anything but their best by the horse, scratching him when he came up with a sore tendon after galloping on Friday.
Team IHA also did right by the bettors — imagine the outcry there would have been if I’ll Had Another had finished other than as the winner and it emerged — as it would have — that he had had some heat and swelling in his left front leg and so wasn’t 100 percent. Oh, we would have howled! How could they let us bet him? How could they have run him?
By putting the horse first, they protected the horseplayer.
Belmont Bombs
Andrew Beyer mentions something that’s been on my mind as I start thinking about how to play this year’s Belmont Stakes:
Forget about handicapping; if you bet every starter in every Belmont Stakes for the last 15 years you’d have almost doubled your money.
Last year, I looked at the win payouts for each of the Triple Crown races and the five Grade 1 Kentucky Derby preps over a decade, and the Belmont was the race that offered the greatest opportunity:
Only one favorite has won the Belmont Stakes in the past 10 years, and that was Afleet Alex in 2005. Handicappers look for longshots in the Derby, but the Belmont has delivered a higher average price ($43.61) and a healthy ROI in recent years — if you had bet $2 to win on all 110 Belmont starters since 2002, you would have almost doubled your money.
There’s a lot to like about I’ll Have Another on Saturday, but the Belmont is the classic race to look for an upset with a rewarding payoff.
Desormeaux Speaks
Not to the press — “I gave my interview after the race, and I really have nothing more to say,” said the jockey (NYT) — but with trainer Rick Dutrow and the stewards. Dutrow said he and the rider are “back on target” (Blood-Horse) after meeting this morning at Aqueduct to discuss the Belmont. As for the stewards, Demormeaux spoke with them for about 20 minutes early this afternoon. It is uncertain what action, if any, the officials might — or should — take.
Tuesday Links
– Summer countdown: 35 days to Del Mar, 42 to Saratoga.
– Curlin breezed an easy half mile in :49 flat at Churchill on Monday, in his final prep for the upcoming Stephen Foster. After grousing over the 128 impost and making vague threats about withdrawing the reigning Horse of the Year from the race, trainer Steve Asmussen confirmed yesterday afternoon that Curlin would start on Saturday: “Not running would be an injustice to him” (Courier-Journal).
– So true: “No matter how dominating a horse may look in a key prep race, or in a previous Triple Crown race, the ultra competitive spring classics provide no tolerance for any interruption of training” (DRF+).
– Trainer Rick Dutrow feels like a loser, scapegoats his jockey. (More discussion of Kent Desormeaux’s Belmont ride and the developing conflict among the connections here, here, here, and here.) Meanwhile, IEAH president Michael Iavarone is talking about the Haskell as a possible next start for Big Brown: “I know we’d get favorable conditions on a track that is more to our liking” (NYT).
– Zaftig, who won the Acorn most impressively under a handride after John Velazquez lost his whip mid-stretch, will point to the Mother Goose, where she could meet up with Oaks victress Proud Spell and up-and-comer Music Note.
Schadenfreude
ESPN commentator Pat Forde gleefully kicks a down Dutrow:
How now does it feel to be the freshly humbled fool of thoroughbred racing, after your waltz to the Triple Crown turned into a disaster, a last-place finish, a Brownout? How now do you justify all the obnoxious bragging about your horse, Big Brown? How now do you possibly answer for having flagrantly disrespected the difficulty of the task before you?
You remember, babe: Winning the Belmont and the first Triple Crown in 30 years was a “foregone conclusion.” You dismissed the field by saying, “These horses just cannot run with Big Brown.” You envisioned winning this race “by daylight, easily. I just don’t see no dogfight in this race.”
It might not have been a dogfight. But there was one dog in the race: the Brown Bomber. This was the worst performance by a Brown since W. told Mike he was doing a heck of a job handling Katrina.
Oh, that’s low, but I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy reading.
And Steven Crist points out something I’d missed:
Two other races came to mind after the Belmont, ones involving previous skirmishes between the winning and losing connections. In the 2005 Woodward, Rick Dutrow ran two overmatched sprinters at Zito’s Commentator to soften him up for Saint Liam. In the Wood Memorial two months ago, IEAH entered the rabbit Inner Light to wear down War Pass early for the benefit of their Court Vision. Both times it “worked” insofar as compromising Zito’s chances. Zito never complained publicly about either incident, and I’m not saying he entered D’Tara and Anak Nakal in retribution, or instructed their riders to surround Big Brown on the first turn, but there was at least a pinch of karma involved in the way it all worked out.
Sometimes, the universe rights itself …
Faultless Big Brown is back at the Big A, and apparently in fine health, leaving his people befuddled about what happened on Saturday. Barring any late-breaking veterinary finds, there’ll never be a good explanation, although I subscribe to the theory that he wasn’t fit, having lost four days training and posting only one work before the Belmont (and that, not as good as it looked). Blame has been heaped on “lazy” Kent Desormeaux elsewhere. Since I’ve never even been on a horse, much less hurtled along at high speed in a tight pack on one, I hate to second guess jockeys in these situations, but did find his words about pulling up Big Brown because he wasn’t “going to be fifth” a bit disturbing. What bothers me more, though, is the lack of transparency and accountability — if the New York stewards talked to Desormeaux afterwards, examined the ride or the results in any detail, or contemplated any action, we’ll never know, since that sort of information isn’t published anywhere. So, it’s all speculation, as is anything on the topic of steroids — it’s a guess whether being off Winstrol affected Big Brown, or if being on steroids helped Da’ Tara, especially since trainer Nick Zito declined to say whether the Belmont winner or Anak Nakal were injected in the days before the race. It’s a safe bet both were, but much like any inquiry by the stewards into Desormeaux’s decision to pull up, there’s no information available, no data kept, no public right to know.
Da’ Tara 99
Unpressured, allowed to coast through the first two quarters in :48.30, three quarters in 1:12.90, and the mile in 1:37.96, Da’ Tara wrapped up the Belmont in 2:29.65, the slowest final time since Sarava in 2002, for which he was assigned a Beyer speed figure of 99, the lowest in the past 15 years:
Trainer Nick Zito said the unexpected winner would be pointed to the Jim Dandy and Travers this summer, along with stablemate Anak Nakal, who finished in a deadheat for third with Todd Pletcher-trainee Ready’s Echo.
Back to the Races
– Finally, a winner (I have not done so well with my TBA picks today). J Be K, pressured through a first half in :44.89, rebuffed dogged longshot True Quality at the top of the stretch, drawing away to take the Woody Stephens with a final time of 1:21.85 and paying $7.20 for the win. Silver Edition got up for second, True Quality finished third. It was second stakes win of the day for rider Garrett Gomez, who will be aboard Macho Again in the Belmont.
– The Manhattan is the deepest, most competitive stakes on today’s card, with the formidable Out of Control, second to Einstein in the Turf Classic last out, and 2007 Manhattan winner Better Talk Now among the starters. Coupled with his rabbit, Shake the Bank, Better Talk Now is 7-1 with 12 minutes to post. I went with Proudinsky, coming off a win in the Muniz Handicap over the yielding turf at Fair Grounds, and Dancing Forever, winner of the Elkhorn at Keeneland at April, in a small pick four I have going. I’m awfully tempted to take a flyer on Stalingrad, making his first graded stakes appearance, and now 12-1 on the board. The 4-year-old gelding has been dominant in his first two local starts this year, but whether he’ll appreciate the added distance or has the class are questions.
– What a terrific finish: five across, then three across, then two heads bobbing for the win, with 4-1 Dancing Forever on the inside beating Out of Control by a nose. Well done!
– Watching the walk from the barns to the paddock on ABC and I’m struck by Big Brown’s appearance — it could be the angle or the light, but he looks ribby and thin in the flank, although his coat is shiny and his haunches well muscled …
– With 20 minutes to post, maiden Guadalcanal is at an inexplicable 23-1 on the board. Big Brown is at 1-4.
– The Belmont field is on the track and Ed checks in with a report: “This crowd is electric … they’re all forgetting about the plumbing, etc. Amazing experience.”
– Kent Desormeaux: “I had no horse.” Big Brown, rank in the first turn, unresponsive to his rider’s urging on the far turn, eased at the top of the stretch. Not how anyone wanted this to end. Fortunately, Big Brown does not appear lame, but he did just become the first Triple Crown hopeful to finish last (that can’t be good for his future stud fee). Congratulations to Nick Zito and rider Alan Garcia, who pulled off a wire-to-wire upset with 38-1 Da’ Tara.
– Zito is all class while being interviewed by Jeanine Edwards in the winner’s circle. Asked whether he would have started a horse with a quarter crack in the Belmont, Zito gracefully refuses to question the decision to run Big Brown or Dutrow’s judgment and turns the conversation back to his winner. Garcia is bubbly and charming thanking owner Robert LaPenta for the chance to ride Da’ Tara. As for the Big Brown connections, here’s a comment from someone on the scene:
IEAH and Dutrow show their classlessness in defeat. The whole world is watching and they duck out and sulk. Desormeaux was the only one who took time to talk to media.
Good for Desormeaux. I’m sure the loss was crushing for him, coming so close to a Triple Crown for the second time, as well as for the trainer who called the Belmont “a foregone conclusion.” Dutrow may have fled the press this afternoon, but the questions about Big Brown’s fitness will persist, and he missed a chance to show sportsmanship and humility …
– 8:10 p.m. update: Attendance was 94,476, way off from the crowd that packed Belmont when Smarty Jones went for the Triple Crown. Total handle has been estimated at $99,850,000, about 13% less than 2004.
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Jessica Chapel is a digital producer and editor in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published since June 2004. More / Contact
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