Reddam Racing's New York-bred Today's Flavor was undeterred by changes in circumstances and weather conditions, wiring a nine-horse field by a half-length in winning the $200,000 Belmont Turf Sprint, which was moved off the turf to the sloppy and sealed main track on Saturday at Belmont at the Big A.
Driving rain forced the six-furlong contest from the outer turf to the Aqueduct Racetrack dirt and the race downgraded from Grade 3 status to a listed event . But the George Weaver trainee was unfazed by the surface change, going to the front under Hall of Fame rider Javier Castellano in leading the field with the opening quarter mile in :22.33 and the half in :45.41.
Kept to the inside, Today's Flavor, bred by Joseph Calvo, continued his march to the wire with fellow New York-bred Thin White Duke making a bid from the outside. But Today's Flavor maintained the advantage and completed the course in a final time of 1:09.74, winning for the second consecutive time and notching his first stakes win since the state-bred Affirmed Success in April at Aqueduct. He entered from a narrow optional-claiming score on September 22 over the Big A turf.
“That type of horse in the dirt, he likes to be put on the lead,” Castellano said. “He was going to the lead and he encourages himself and gets very confident in himself and that was my goal today and it worked out great. It was supposed to be on the turf, but it rained and the conditions worked out in my case for this particular race, especially the way he did it. I'm very fortunate enough I rode him last time on the turf here and covered up a little bit to save all the ground. Today was a different ballgame with the way the track played. I tried to use his speed on the lead and run wire-to-wire.”
Thin White Duke, trained by David Donk and ridden by Jose Lezcano, bested Wit by a half-length for second, with Alogon finishing fourth. Dancing Buck, Pirate Rick, Alexis S, Eamonn and Yes and Yes completed the order of finish. Big Invasion, Fauci and Nothing Better scratched.
“On the turf, he has a different kick,” said Blair Golen, assistant to Weaver. “On here…when he gets the lead, he's confident. As soon as he gets away from the horses, he settles. You'll see in his demeanor out of the gate, he runs hard and once he gets on the lead, he just lengthens out his stride and covers a lot of ground. As soon as he feels them or hears them [the competition], he just kicks on.”
Today's Flavor, the 7-5 favorite, paid $4.80 on a $2 win wager. The 5-year-old son of Laoban out of the Speightstown mare Evangelicial improved his career earnings to $474,080.
“His win last time was just an experiment [on turf] because he is a Laoban and he's a very versatile horse,” Golen said. “They were a little frustrated with him and the way he was going, and they tried to freshen him up over the summer. He breezed excellent, so what's the worst that would happen? He wouldn't win? So, now we have a lot of options.”
Thin White Duke, bred in the Empire State by his co-owner and former conditioner Phil Gleaves, finished in the money for the third time in his last four starts, including a last-out win in the Harvey Pack on September 2 at Saratoga Race Course.
“He had good 2-year-old form on the dirt with Phil and by the time I ran him on dirt it was longer,” Donk said. “So today, we could run him with a little confidence and I thought he would run well. He just needed someone to go with the winner [Today's Flavor] a little bit and soften him up. The winner ran huge, but I thought our horse ran really big. He's still a better grass horse, but this gives us a little confidence if a race comes off the grass now.
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