Belmont Stakes | Horse Racing Free Tips

1/ST Racing Considering Moving Date of the Preakness; NYRA Not on Board with Move

1/ST Racing & Gaming is ready to shake up the Triple Crown.

The company, which operates Pimlico Race Course, has confirmed to the TDN that it is giving strong consideration to moving the date of the GI Preakness S. so that it is run four weeks after the GI Kentucky Derby.

“We have discussed it internally and believe it's in the best interests of horses and horse safety to move the race four weeks after the Kentucky Derby,” said Aidan Butler, Chief Executive Officer of 1/ST Racing & Gaming. “This would give horses more time to recover between races to be able to run in the Preakness. Horse safety is more important than tradition. NYRA is aware and considering how this would impact the Belmont. Stay tuned.”

Butler said there would be no further comment at this time.

Should the date of the Preakness get changed, the next move will be up to NYRA, which hosts the GI Belmont. If the Preakness is moved to four weeks after the Derby that would mean that, unless NYRA also shifts the date of the Belmont, the Belmont would be run just one week after the Preakness. That may be exactly what happens.

“NYRA has concerns about fundamental changes to the structure of the Triple Crown. We have no plans to move the date of the Belmont Stakes,” said NYRA spokesperson Pat McKenna.

The current structure of the Triple Crown works far better for the Belmont than it does for the Preakness. With five weeks between the Derby and Belmont, a number of trainers pass the Preakness and go next in the Belmont.

Traditionally, the Triple Crown is run over a five-week period, with two weeks between the Derby and the Preakness and three weeks between the Preakness and the Belmont. While that may be a long-standing tradition, it has clearly become an impediment to drawing horses to the Preakness because modern trainers are very reluctant to run their horses back within two weeks. In 2022, Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike (Keen Ice) skipped the Preakness and waited for the Belmont. This year, Kentucky Derby winner Mage (Good Magic) was the only horse from the Derby to run back in the Preakness.

These developments have led to added support for changing the spacing of the races. Just last month, Tom Rooney, the president and CEO of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, penned an editorial calling for the races be spread further apart. “The time has come in Thoroughbred racing for our own change, to modernize the timeline of the Triple Crown,” he wrote.

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Decisive Delgado Could Not Wait for Castellano

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — It turned out that a non-decision is precisely what settled who would ride GI Kentucky Derby winner Mage (Good Magic) and GI Belmont S. winner Arcangelo (Arrogate) in the GI Travers.

Hall of Fame jockey Javier Castellano rode both horses to their victories in the Triple Crown series and had his choice of which one to ride in the Travers on Aug. 26 at Saratoga Race Course. He holds the Travers record of six wins.

Mage's trainer, Gustavo Delgado, asked Castellano on Monday to give him an answer by late Tuesday afternoon. Castellano asked for more time and when he did not contact Delgado by the deadline, Delgado announced that Luis Saez would ride the chestnut colt.

“I can't wait for him. That's no problem,” Delgado said. “He said he can't make a decision right now. I understand.”

Delgado said the owners of the colt were asking him who would ride and since he expects the $1.25- million Travers to have a large field, perhaps as many as a dozen runners, he felt it was important to act.

“The decision was not Castellano's. It was my decision,” he said. “My decision was not to wait. Not to wait until next week. Not wait until entries.”

Saez's move to Mage leaves Tapit Trice (Tapit) without a jockey for the moment. Trainer Todd Pletcher said he would talk with the colt's connections about a replacement.

Delgado and Castellano are both from Venezuela and are longtime friends. Castellano said he understands why Delgado wanted the matter settled.

“It's a hard decision. Nobody can be mad,” he said. “We shouldn't be mad. Nobody. This is the business.”

Castellano had hoped he would have more time to discuss his options with his agent and Arcangelo's trainer Jena Antonucci, but Delgado was firm. After spending Tuesday on a boat with his family, Castellano returned home to learn that Delgado had booked Saez.

“I don't blame them because they gave me the right to choose,” Castellano said. “Then they gave me the deadline and I couldn't answer that question right away. Then they took away the decision. It was good. It worked out for everybody.”

Delgado said he settled on Saez because he had ridden the colt to a second-place finish in the GI Florida Derby. Forte (Curlin) made a strong run in the stretch to catch and pass Mage.

“At that moment, he was not used to the horse,” Delgado said. “I think he was surprised with the horse because he never rode (Mage). When I talked with him after the ride, he said, 'Gustavo, this is a good horse. You can win the Derby, but right now I have a commitment to Tapit Trice.'”

Delgado turned to Castellano and he earned his first Derby victory. He also rode Mage to a third in the GI Preakness and a second in the GI Haskell.

Saez's agent Kiaran McLaughlin said they made it clear that they wanted another opportunity on Mage.

“We were always in touch with them,” he said. “We knew there was going to be a possible issue so we told them we would be happy to ride him if they needed a rider.

It wasn't an easy decision because Tapit Trice has been very good to us and Todd has been very good to us, but we just thought we would like to be on Mage in the Travers.”

McLaughlin said he got the call from the Mage camp Tuesday afternoon.

“I just waited for them,” he said. “I told Todd as soon as they told me and he was good with it. He's very, very good to deal with. He's a very close friend and I hate to ever take off a Todd Pletcher, for a claiming race or a Grade I. It's not easy.”

Antonucci said early in the meet that she would be patient and let Castellano pick who he would ride.

“You just have to give things time to breathe sometimes and not force topics and everything always works out the way it's supposed to,” she said. “I'm a big believer that there are stuff way bigger and stronger than us making things happen and watching out.

One of us was going to have Javier and one of us was going to have Luis Saez.”

Castellano is 3-for-3 aboard Arcangelo. Antonucci said she turned to him when Jose Ortiz gave up the mount after two starts. Castellano was up for the maiden victory on Mar. 18, and wins in the GIII Peter Pan on May 13 and the Belmont on June 10.

Antonucci said Castellano's patient approach suits Arcangelo's running style.

“For me, it just works,” she said. “He believes in the horse. The horse knows that. They keep forming more and more of a relationship. It just works.”

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Multiple Graded Stakes Winner Tax Retired

Multiple graded stakes winner Tax (Arch) has been retired from racing. The 7-year-old gelding, who was claimed by trainer and co-owner Danny Gargan for $50,000 out of his debut race in 2018, won the 2019 GII Jim Dandy S. and GIII Withers S., as well as the 2020 GIII Harlan's Holiday S. He earned a trip to the 2019 GI Kentucky Derby with a runner-up effort in the GII Wood Memorial. Fourteenth in the Derby, he returned to finish fourth in the GI Belmont S.

On the board in 11 of 19 races, he won five times and earned $1,102,190.

“We've decided to retire him because it was the right thing to do by the horse,” said Gargan. “He's done enough. We just wanted him to win over the million-dollar mark, and he got well over that.”

In his final career start, Tax was runner-up in the GIII Challenger S. at Tampa Bay Downs in March.

Gargan said Tax has been sent to the farm of Dean Reeves, who co-owned Tax through 2021, and he will be retrained with an eye to a pony career.

“He went to Dean Reeves's farm and we're probably going to break him to be the farm pony next year,” said Gargan. “Maybe he'll come here to Saratoga next year and be our barn pony here.”

Tax retires as the all-time top earner for Gargan.

“He's my favorite horse of all-time,” said Gargan. “He's so pretty and so kind for such a big horse.”

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Hall of Fame Jockey Edgar Prado Has Retired

In a tweet sent out Tuesday afternoon, Gulfstream Park announced that Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado has retired. With 7,119 victories, Prado, 56, is the eighth winningest jockey in the sport's history. He has not ridden since the Jan. 6 card at Gulfstream.

At deadline for this story, Prado had not returned a phone from the TDN, but told the Blood-Horse that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

“It was getting harder and harder and I was wasting the time that I spent with my family, with my loved ones,” he told the Blood-Horse. “I saw my kids in my house having a great time and I decided to call it off. I've been very blessed throughout my career.”

Prado's decision to retire came after one of the roughest stretches of his career. He won just 15 races in 2021 and another 11 in 2022. This year, he was 0-for-2.

“They all wanted new riders,” he told said. “I totally understand that. When I was 20, I took somebody's place and now somebody is taking my place.”

Prado was born in Lima, Peru, where he rode his first winner in 1983. He began riding in the U.S. in 1986, starting out at the Florida tracks before moving on to Suffolk Downs. He had his breakthrough at the Maryland tracks, where, in 1997, he won 536 races. He was the leading jockey in Maryland six times, 1991 through 1993 and 1997 through 1999. Prado led all riders in the nation in wins three times, in 1997, 1998 and 1999.

In 1999, Richard Migliore, who was riding regularly for trainer John Kimmel had a spill and Kimmel needed a new rider. He summoned Prado from Maryland and that began a very successful run at the NYRA tracks for the talented Peruvian jockey. He would go on to win 11 riding titles at the NYRA tracks.

He won the 2002 GI Belmont S. with Sarava (Wild Again), the longest shot ever to win the race, and the 2004 Belmont with Birdstone (Grindstone). He also won five Breeders' Cup races. But Prado will always be best known as the rider of the ill-fated Barbaro (Dynaformer). After a rousing win by Barbaro in the 2006 GI Kentucky Derby with Prado aboard, the colt appeared ready to sweep the Triple Crown, but he broke down in the GI Preakness S. and was euthanized several months later.

Prado won an Eclipse Award in 2006 as the nation's leading rider and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2008.

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