JC / Railbird

Belmont Archive

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

This Is Not

… something it should be possible to write about the G1 Suburban Handicap:

Grade 1 travesty, indeed.
At least the Suburban drew a field big enough for trifecta wagering, unlike the G1 Mother Goose, which attracted only four starters. Despite the tiny field size, though, this is the race of more interest to me — Kentucky Oaks winner Proud Spell is easily the best 3-year-old running right now and I am very curious to see how Music Note, who I’ve mentioned here a few times before, does in her first stakes start. It’s worth logging into Cal Racing to check out the replay of her May 22 allowance win at Belmont — while the comment line “4 wide, hand ride,” does capture the essentials of her run, the note doesn’t fully convey the easy dominance she displayed, and not for the first time. The A.P. Indy filly won her maiden (in her second start, after debuting in a super key race) very assuredly and also under a hand ride over the Aqueduct inner last November, before disappearing to Dubai for the winter.

Posted in Belmont on June 26, 2008

Early Double

Transit of Venus is 3-1 on the morning line in the first at Belmont this afternoon, making his second start for trainer Gary Contessa after finishing third at the same level on Met Mile day. This was a bad beat for me: I played Transit of Venus at 5-1 in the fifth and had to watch in frustration as the 5-year-old gelding was checked in the stretch, then trapped behind a wall as the field neared the sixteenth. When rider Rajiv Maragh found a hole in the final yards, Transit’ burst through, actually getting a neck in front of ultimate winner Dancing Tin Man — two jumps after the wire. The best, but too late, so disappointing. Transit of Venus is returning among a similar bunch and has a decent work between starts, having breezed five furlongs in 1:01 on June 14, and figures to stay close to the whatever pace there might be in this affair. Also of note is Nkosi Reigns, 7-2 dropping in for a tag for the first time in his career. The 7-year-old gelding trained by Kiaran McLaughlin seems to prefer an unmolested lead to do his best, but does show an ability to rate and win in his past and could end up sitting off Provincetown, who tired in his last, the first off a layoff, or morning line favorite Bon Marie, who makes his third start in four weeks at the $35,000 level for trainer Rick Dutrow.
In the second, it’s hard to get past Sammarco with the eye-catching 102 Beyer he boasts after running second to Mucho Macho (returning in the eighth at Belmont today) on May 17, his first start in more than a year. Morning line says 6-5, but don’t be surprised if post-time odds are more like 4-5. Golden Weekend gets blinkers after a decent showing in a maiden special run over Belmont’s speed-favoring Belmont Stakes day track. That race, the day’s second, was won by Sixthirteen, who made his way to the inside rail and barely outlasted place horse Tiz It after posting fractions of :21.96 and :44.80 in the first half. I’m going to look toward 5-1 first-time starter Lincoln Road for a mild upset here. The 3-year-old colt is by one of my favorite underrated debut sires, Montbrook, and shows excellent recent gate works, including one on June 13, when he went five furlongs in 1:01, the fastest of 21 at the distance that day.
[Results: Well, I’m not going to crow over picking a $5.70 winner or an $11.60 double, but it was delightful to watch the first race unfold pretty much as I imagined it would and catch Transit of Venus this time around, along with the $105 trifecta. As Brooklyn Backstretch alludes to in her comment, my racing luck has not been so fantastic lately, and Saturday’s first was a much needed confidence boost, even if it didn’t exactly lead to a brag-worthy score.]

Posted in Belmont on June 21, 2008