Tag: GI Belmont S.

Baffert Runners Return To Santa Anita In Good Order

Both 'TDN Rising Star' Arabian Lion (Justify), winner of the GI Woody Stephens S. and National Treasure (Quality Road), the GI Preakness winner who faded to sixth after setting the pace in the GI Belmont S., were back at Santa Anita and doing well after competing on last Saturday's Belmont Stakes card at Belmont Park according to trainer Bob Baffert. Prospective next starts have not been named for either runner.

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This Side Up: Tapping At The Door Of History

So, what's next? The plague of locusts? The only surprise is that the smoke filling the air at Belmont Park has drifted across the continent from Canadian forests, and didn't actually emerge from a widening fissure in the crust, crumbling daily, that appears to divide horsemen and their horses from the inferno.

Hopefully a reprieve of the GI Belmont S. might yet be extended to some other elements in what has become too relentlessly apocalyptic a narrative. In terms of what has been definitively established, our sport's macabre run of misfortune in recent weeks may owe as much to sulphurs exhaled from hell as to the difference between dirt and synthetic surfaces.

As a community, we obviously have a major challenge on our hands. But that's precisely why we need to avoid panicked, impulsive solutions in favor of calmly diligent, far-sighted leadership. Just because social media has empowered some pretty deranged minorities, we can't allow their disproportionate reach to pervert whole societal agendas.

It would seem pretty unarguable that American racing can benefit from a greater role for synthetics but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Horsemen and handicappers alike have a legitimate stake in dirt racing–and, to be clear, that stake is not just financial but a matter of cultural identity–and there its long history can surely be extended by discovering and addressing any practices that undermine its sustainability. I suspect there's probably quite a crossover between those who are resisting HISA and those who can't abide synthetics–and these are the guys who really need to smell the coffee. If you want to keep dirt racing, then call your dogs off HISA.

Tapit | Sarah Andrew

You couldn't ask for a better context to ponder these issues than the 155th running of a race designed to showcase precisely those genetic assets that equip the Thoroughbred to deal safely with tasks set before an increasingly (and, for the most part, properly) vigilant audience. And that's not just because it asks for the robustness to carry speed for a distance that is nearly freakish, in the American theatre, but also because historically many runners would already have contested two demanding races in the preceding five weeks.

Though it is the trainers who are driving corrosion of the Triple Crown, they implicitly transfer the culpability to the breeders. Hopefully our collective endeavors to identify and resolve vulnerabilities in the Thoroughbred will include analysis of the relative incidence of breakdowns (and not just catastrophic ones) in the stock of different stallions. If so, we might learn whether there's any scientific substance to our nervousness about horses today being “too fast to last.”  For now, however, we can only follow our instincts and conscience. But it's certainly striking that Germany should have achieved such a sensational impact with its bloodlines–far outrunning its troubles as a racing economy–by paternalist strictures in favor of soundness and competitive longevity. And even the most stubborn commercial breeders in Europe and America must acknowledge that Japan isn't doing too badly, either, in prizing the same assets.

Happily, the 50th anniversary of Secretariat's Belmont has drawn a perfectly presentable field in both quality and intrigue. With four other Kentucky Derby graduates meanwhile siphoned to the GIII Matt Winn S., it's clear that the Classic taking all the punishment from trainers right now is the Preakness. But how edifying that the Belmont–such an outlier, in the numbly repeating wheelhouse of most American trainers–should retain sufficient prestige to tempt a juvenile champion who'd be well within his rights to find a more obviously congenial way of regrouping from his recent vexations.

Quite a leap of imagination is required to picture a speed brand like Violence siring a Belmont winner, but his grandsire El Prado (Ire) sits comfortingly opposite Arch (behind damsire Blame) in the pedigree of Forte. So you never know, and clearly the runner-up has meanwhile upgraded his white-knuckle GI Florida Derby.

But his second dam was fast (stakes winner at 6f) and will need to have smuggled through some stamina from her own mother. That's by no means impossible, as she was by Seattle Slew and her half-sister by a speedier agency (Storm Cat) unites the pedigrees of 12-furlong Classic winners Contrail (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and Essential Quality (Tapit), as third and second dam respectively.

Essential Quality, of course, was his sire's fourth Belmont winner, a unique distinction in the modern era. The only precedent, Lexington, had emerged from a forgotten era of four-mile heats and matches to prove an ideal influence for what was then a newfangled type of sprinting in a single, congested dash. The dial has since turned so far that the Belmont stands out as a curio, a positive marathon. Breeders of the 21st Century must count themselves blessed, then, to retain access to such a wholesome influence in the evening of his career.

Forte | Coady Photography

Astoundingly, this time Tapit himself accounts for two of the nine runners, while no fewer than FOUR others are out of his daughters.

The Gainesway patriarch's Belmont record, including in a couple of desperate finishes, is all about the ability to carry speed under duress. That is supposed to be a dirt hallmark, though it was exported to revolutionary effect by Northern Dancer's sons in Europe, where the dynasty's principal heir Frankel (GB)-having himself always run just like a dirt horse-is now siring stock that similarly just keep going.

Actually, there's a case for saying that Tapit is a far more effective turf sire than his stats might imply, given that only his most disappointing foals would even try the weeds. He's certainly been disgracefully untested in Europe. Of just nine Tapits started by British trainers over the last decade, seven are winners and three stakes performers. But whatever the future may hold, in terms of racing surfaces, it looks as though he will just have to settle for being the richest sire in the history of the American sport.

Into Mischief is almost certainly going to run him down, in time, but Tapit started Belmont weekend on a statistical brink–$198 million in progeny earnings, from 999 winners and 99 graded stakes winners–that surely beckons him towards another date with Belmont destiny. And if he's going to make history, then he's also the type of horse that can give us a future.

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NYRA Cancels Thursday Training

As live racing cancellations continued to mount Wednesday in light of unhealthy air quality due to residual smoke from Canadian wildfires, training will be prohibited Thursday morning at both Belmont Park and Saratoga Race Course, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) announced Wednesday evening. This is particularly impactful as Belmont's three-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival is scheduled to kick off Thursday afternoon.

A decision regarding Thursday's live racing program at Belmont, which has a first post of 3:05 p.m. and will feature the GII Wonder Again S. for 3-year-old fillies on grass, will be made Thursday morning following a review of the air quality conditions and forecast, NYRA said.

A total of 15 graded races are scheduled to be run over the three-day Festival, highlighted by Saturday's running of the GI Belmont S., the third leg of the Triple Crown.

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Belmont Tune Ups Include Final Works from Cox Barn Trio

With one week out until the GI Belmont S., a trio of Brad Cox trainees put in their final works ahead of the last leg of the Triple Crown on Saturday at Churchill Downs.

Angel of Empire (Classic Empire), Hit Show (Candy Ride {Arg}) and Tapit Shoes (Tapit) each put in five-furlong works while a handful of additional Cox stable stars completed their final tune-ups in preparation for bids in a jam-packed Belmont undercard. The Churchill Downs-based Cox contingent is set to head to Belmont Park on Monday.

Angel of Empire, who finished third in the GI Kentucky Derby, completed the fastest work of Cox's Belmont contenders, stopping the clock in 59.80 seconds.

The winner of the GII Risen Star S. and GI Arkansas Derby for Albaugh Family Stables, Angel of Empire put in a closing bid in the Kentucky Derby to angle wide from the back of the pack and get up for third.

“I think he has more to show,” Cox said. “We always thought he would get better with the more he does based off pedigree and his physical, and he has. His numbers in the Kentucky Derby went forward and he's had five weeks to recover from that number. From a physical standpoint, he seems to be continuing to develop and I love what we've seen from him in his works.”

The Pennsylvania-bred colt's three post-Derby works have led Cox to believe that Angel of Empire will relish the Belmont distance.

“He always gallops out well,” Cox explained. “Probably the best part of his works is that around the second turn, he just continues to want to gallop out up the backside. We're excited about giving him the opportunity to go that far.”

Based on how the Belmont field is shaping up, Cox said he is hopeful that Angel of Empire can sit a bit more forwardly placed this time around.

“I think everyone is going to be a little bit closer to the pace. We're probably not going to see 45 and change in the Belmont. If we do, I don't know who's going to do that. I think naturally, he will probably be a little bit more forwardly placed than he was in the Kentucky Derby.”

Not far behind Angel of Empire in the Kentucky Derby was fellow Cox trainee Hit Show. After breaking from the one post, the gray sat a few horses off the pace along the rail and then looked poised for success when he circled wide around the far turn, but the May 9 foal was unable to fend off the likes of Mage (Gun Runner) and was urged on by Manny France to stay up for fifth.

A homebred for Gary and Mary West, Hit Show earned his Derby points at Aqueduct, winning the GIII Withers S. by five and a half lengths and then finishing second in the GII Wood Memorial S.

Cox said that the colt's affinity for New York could serve him well on Belmont day.

“He's had some success at Aqueduct, and with NYRA tracks, they seem to be just a little bit deeper and sandier. He was capable of getting through at Aqueduct, so we're hopeful that he can get through the Belmont track. We thought he ran a really good race in the Kentucky Derby and we're excited about him going a mile and a half. Manny Franco came back and mentioned the Belmont right away, so he could be a horse that can move forward in the Belmont.”

On Saturday morning, Hit Show covered five furlongs in 1:01.60.

The last of Cox's Belmont-bound colts, Tapit Shoes, has put in four works at Churchill Downs since running second to GI Preakness fourth-place finisher Red Route One (Gun Runner) in the Bath House Row S. at Oaklawn Park on April 22. In his work on Saturday, he stopped the clock at 1:00.60.

Owned in partnership by Spendthrift Farm, Steve Landers Racing, Martin Schwartz, Michael Dubb, Ten Strike Racing, Jim Bakke, Titletown Racing, Kueber Racing, Big Easy Racing, Winners Win and Michael Caruso, Tapit Shoes broke his maiden by seven and a half lengths at Fair Grounds last December. This year, he ran fourth and then third against allowance company before his second-place finish in the stakes at Oaklawn.

Cox said that colt's pedigree was a major consideration in sending the son of Tapit-who is the sire of four Belmont S. winners–to his graded stakes debut in the final leg of the Triple Crown.

“He's by Tapit, which obviously everyone knows that those horses perform well at a mile and a half on dirt…and he's a half to GISW Cyberknife (Gun Runner),” Cox said. “He seems to be getting better the more he does. He took a move forward  in the Bath House Row S. and he's had plenty of time to recover from that. I think he obviously has to take another move forward and I'm hoping that he will. He's a pretty consistent workhorse, steady, and always gallops out well. He gives us some confidence that he could like the mile and a half.”

In addition to Cox's Belmont contenders, champion Caravel (Mizzen Mast) will also make a Grade I bid in the Jaipur S. next weekend. Campaigned by Quatar Racing, Marc Detampel and Madaket Stables, the winner of last year's GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint was originally slated for  the G1 King's Stand at Royal Ascot, but her connections opted for the much shorter journey to Belmont for the six-furlong Jaipur, which is a Breeders' Cup challenge race and offers an automatic berth to the Turf Sprint.

“She had a big run at Belmont last year in the GIII Intercontinental S., so we're going to see if we can do it again this year only against the boys in a Grade I,” said Cox. “She's obviously capable of that, having won the Breeders' Cup, and she's really doing well right now. She physically looks amazing.”

Caravel breezed four furlongs on the Churchill Downs turf on May 24 and then went the same distance over the main track in :49.40 on Thursday.

“We opted to breeze on the dirt just with scheduling and shipping and everything,” Cox explained. “She's a good workhouse and had a good gallop out. We're happy with the way she looks and how she's moving.

Belmont Workers at Belmont, Gulfstream

Also on Saturday morning, Todd Pletcher's Belmont-bound pair of juvenile champion Forte (Violence) and GI Blue Grass S. victor Tapit Trice (Tapit) took to the main track at Belmont.

 

Repole Stable and St. Elis Stable's Forte put in a five furlong breeze under Irad Ortiz Jr. in :59.67, working in company with maiden winner Varatti (Into Mischief).

“I thought it was a super good breeze,” Pletcher said afterward. “He went 59 and 3 and it looked like he was doing it well within himself, good gallop out. He came back and cooled out quickly. It was exactly what we were hoping he would go out there and do and I think based off the strength of his breezes, he's coming into it as well as we hope.”

After he was scratched from the GI Kentucky Derby due to a bruised right front foot, Forte was placed on a mandatory 14-day veterinary list. According to HISA Rule 2241(a), in order to be removed from the list Forte had to work in front of a regulatory veterinarian–which he completed last week–and then produce a blood sample following that work. Pletcher said that Forte's blood sample came back negative.

Tapit Trice, who finished seventh in the GI Kentucky Derby for Whisper Hill Farm and Gainesway Stable, worked a half-mile in :49.89 on Saturday, going in company with winner Classic Catch (Classic Empire).

“I thought he looked great,” Pletcher reported. “He's getting over the ground really well. He's a good-moving horse. We were looking to do a little less with him than we were with Forte, since he ran in the Derby and has had two breezes since then. It was more of a maintenance work for him and it seems like he continues to take to the main track here really well.”

Meanwhile at Gulfstream, Il Miracolo (Gun Runner) worked five furlongs in 1:00.88. Joining the Belmont field coming off an allowance optional claiming win on May 11, the colt is trained by Antonio Sano and campaigned by Alexandres, Inc.

 

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