This Saturday, the Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath will take on the boys in the $1.5 million Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.
In three weeks, Kentucky Oaks runner-up Nest may take on the boys in the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes.
Trainer Todd Pletcher, who won the 2007 Belmont Stakes with the filly Rags to Riches, said Nest is a possibility for the Belmont, pending what happens this Saturday in Baltimore and how his filly trains over the next few weeks.
Following a disappointing result in the Arkansas Derby last month when nothing went his way, We the People had everything his own way Saturday at Belmont Park as he galloped to a 10 1/4-length victory in the Grade 2, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes, a result that likely earns him a spot in the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes on June 11.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Richard Mandella will have just his third starter at Belmont Park in the last 21 years on Saturday when he sends out Set Sail in a seemingly wide-open renewal of the Grade 3, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes for 3-year-olds.
The 1 1/8-mile Peter Pan, the local prep for the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes on June 11, drew a field of eight, but only one horse, Cooke Creek, has won a stakes, that being a minor race at Delaware Park last October.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The trainers of Essential Quality and Hot Rod Charlie were pleasantly surprised by how well their 3-year-olds looked Sunday morning after their knockdown, drag-out stretch battle in Saturday’s $1.5 million Belmont Stakes won by Essential Quality.
Essential Quality trainer Brad Cox said the way his horse was behaving Sunday morning, “he looks like he didn’t even run.
Turf and dirt, Belmont Stakes Day turned out well for trainer Chad Brown.
Three-year-old filly Search Results won the Grade 1 Acorn over one mile on dirt, while Brown ran one-two in the Grade 1 Manhattan as Domestic Spending assumed a clear position as North America’s best grass horse with a comfortable win over the Brown-trained pacesetter Tribhuvan.
Total betting on the Belmont Stakes on Saturday afternoon was $60.46 million, a 13.6 percent increase over handle the last time the race was held in its traditional place on the Triple Crown calendar in 2019, according to the New York Racing Association.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Doug O’Neill was probably a lot less surprised than most to see Hot Rod Charlie on the lead from the outset of Saturday’s Belmont Stakes. In the paddock prior to the race, he and jockey Flavien Prat had discussed the possibility of sending “Charlie” to the front, in part to avoid the early trouble that arguably cost him the victory five weeks earlier in the Kentucky Derby.
A compromised start and wide trip sent ESSENTIAL QUALITY to his first defeat in the Kentucky Derby five weeks ago, but he benefitted from a gorgeous trip and advantageous pace Saturday to re-establish his position as the best 3-year-old male in the land by taking the Belmont Stakes over a stubborn HOT ROD CHARLIE, who ran too good to lose the way the race unfolded.
A few points before delving into the race itself:
ELMONT, N.Y. - On the morning after Essential Quality finished fourth in the Kentucky Derby, his first career defeat, trainer Brad Cox recalled how the first time he watched the horse work out, he told his assistant the horse would win the Belmont Stakes.
It sounded hyperbolic. It proved prophetic.
