JC / Railbird

Belmont Archive

Royalty-Free Year

No Triple Crown this spring, and no Triple Tiara this summer. When Music Note, a talented filly on the rise, won the Mother Goose last month, I wondered if she might be chasing the historic bauble with starts in the Coaching Club American Oaks and Alabama under consideration. Teresa of Brooklyn Backstretch reports the achievement isn’t possible, though, since the series, which was changed to Mother Goose- Coaching Club- Alabama in 2003, was restored to its original configuration of Acorn- Mother Goose- Coaching Club in 2006 for an unknown reason:

Curious. The bonus for the Tiara, which has been won by such distaff stars as Sky Beauty, Ruffian, and Shuvee, was dropped in 2004, and as Teresa notes, there’s been woefully little marketing around the series in recent years.
Zaftig, the filly who was eligible to take the Tiara this year, is unfortunately sidelined for the summer with a stress fracture. Owner John Moore said last week the Acorn winner could return in time for the Gazelle Stakes in September.

Posted in Belmont on July 7, 2008

In the Second

… at Belmont today, Critical is scratched in favor of stablemate In Fine Fettle, a 2-year-old Lion Heart filly debuting for trainer Rick Dutrow (so hard to avoid that name these days) and Jay Em Ess Stable. First crop sire Lion Heart is proving as precocious a stud as he was a racehorse, getting seven winners out of his first 13 starters (including a minor stakes winner at Lone Star last month, Lyin’ Heart). Morning line on In Fine Fettle is 5-1; the 2-1 projected favorite is Miss Bodine, a Vindication baby starting for Bob Baffert off a string of nothing unusual (for Baffert or Vindication 2-year-olds) speedy works.

Posted in Belmont on July 3, 2008

She’s a Star

Photo by Adam Coglianese/NYRA.

… in the making. Music Note stumbled out of the gate, lost a hind shoe, raced three wide into the stretch tracking a pokey pace (:24.83, :48.66, and 1:13.09), and still the talented and well-bred A.P. Indy filly easily pulled away, with little urging from rider Javier Castellano, to a 3 1/2-length win as the 8-5 second favorite in the G1 Mother Goose (final eighth in :12.23, final time for the 1 1/8 miles 1:49.75). Trainer Saeed bin Suroor, making a rare New York appearance, said Music Note would be pointed to the Alabama on August 16, but didn’t rule out a start in the Coaching Club American Oaks on July 19. Is it too early to start talking Triple Tiara?

Clearly, for me the story of the four-horse Mother Goose was Music Note’s ascension, but the bigger story for most was Proud Spell’s bad luck. The 1-2 favorite also stumbled out of the gate, then was checked in the stretch after getting caught on the rail, finishing second, but was disqualified and placed third after bearing out on Never Retreat in the final sixteenth. “We would have left the order alone and given jockey Gabriel Saez, aboard Proud Spell, some days off to think about his bad ride,” writes Jerry Bossert in the NY Daily News, and while I agree with him that the DQ seems sort of pointless, I say — with all due respect to Proud Spell, a formidable stakes filly certain to return to win again — that even if everything had gone her way, she still would have finished second to the push-button filly on the improve.

Posted in Belmont on June 28, 2008