ELMONT, N.Y. - There may be a new 3-year-old star on the horizon, but it is likely he won't be seen again until after the Belmont Stakes.
Oratory, who came around so late that his connections didn't nominate him to the Triple Crown series, put forth a stakes-record performance Saturday, winning the $200,000 by 4 3/4 lengths over Reverberate at Belmont Park. It was 6 1/2 lengths back to Golden Man in third.
He had five horses in the Kentucky Derby, three in the Preakness, and has two under consideration for the June 11 Belmont Stakes. So far in this year's Triple Crown, trainer Nick Zito certainly has had the numbers. But the results have been disappointing, though Zito on Friday sounded both hopeful and resilient after Andromeda's Hero, one of his Belmont contenders, turned in a sharp workout at Saratoga.
ELMONT, N.Y. - When it became apparent that Chekhov wouldn't be able to make the Kentucky Derby, trainer Patrick Biancone started thinking about the summer and the Travers Stakes.
After Chekhov developed two quarter cracks coming out of the Sham Stakes on Feb. 5, Biancone was willing to be extremely patient with the colt, who cost $3.3 million at auction as a 2-year-old.
Chekhov wasn't willing to wait. Coming to hand quickly this spring, Chekhov romped to an 8 1/4-length maiden win at Belmont Park on May 8.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Sal Russo knows all too well how the can act as a springboard to success in the Belmont Stakes.
In 1993, Russo was an assistant to trainer Scotty Schulhofer when Colonial Affair won the Belmont after finishing second in the Peter Pan. Six years later, Russo was the agent for jockey Jose Santos, who guided the Schulhofer-trained Lemon Drop Kid to victory in the Belmont, ending Charismatic's bid for the Triple Crown.
Round and round Afleet Alex has gone this year, logging more miles than a long-distance trucker. He has trained upward of five miles some mornings, combining jogs with gallops, oftentimes twice a day. It is an unorthodox regimen, considering that almost all horses routinely gallop no more than a mile and a half per day. But in light of what happened in the Preakness Stakes last Saturday, when Afleet Alex remarkably recovered after stumbling badly when he clipped heels with Scrappy T, it might very well have saved his life, and that of jockey Jeremy Rose.
ELMONT, N.Y. - It takes 393 steps (including 161 down stairs) to get from the press box to the jocks' room at Belmont Park. An hour after the Belmont Stakes, the enclaves were on top of each other - the pounding of laptop keyboards echoing through the jockeys' bunker in the basement.
It's the jockey's job to ride a race, the reporter's job to analyze it, and the fan's right to agree or disagree. Sometimes they clash.
ELMONT, N.Y. - When Smarty Jones arrived at Belmont Park on Wednesday, he was accompanied by a police escort that had shadowed him from Pennsylvania, through New Jersey, and on to New York. On a bright, sunny day, a large crowd gathered near Belmont Park's Barn 5 that day to see the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Edgar Prado had been here before, only this time was different. In 2002, when Prado guided Sarava to the biggest upset in Belmont Stakes history, the horse going for the Triple Crown, War Emblem, was already finished.
Saturday, with 120,139 on hand, and another several million watching on television and at tracks across the country, Prado and his pocket-sized colt Birdstone entered the Belmont Park homestretch with only one horse in front of him: Triple Crown hopeful Smarty Jones.
