The Brooklyn Invitational over 1 1/2 miles on dirt was a handicap at 1 1/8 miles when trainer Jimmy Jerkens won it in 2003 with Iron Deputy, but the changes to the race should only enhance Jerkens’s chances when the $400,000 Brooklyn is run Saturday on the Belmont Stakes undercard.
Golden Horn won his group stakes debut in the Group 2 Dante Stakes at York last month, moving to the fore of the division. He was the 3-2 favorite with British bookmakers as of Thursday for the Group 1 English Derby.
Saturday’s all-Grade 1 stakes pick four, which begins in race 8 and concludes with the Belmont Stakes, has a guaranteed pool of $1.5 million. I’ll be playing it (among many other things on Saturday’s highly tempting card), and what follows are my thoughts on each race in this sequence.
Thrust back into horse racing’s occasional spotlight, Victor Espinoza has been more than willing to answer all the questions he was asked last year before and after California Chrome’s try in the Belmont Stakes, as well as a few left over from 2002, when he came to the Belmont with Derby and Preakness winner War Emblem and left empty-handed.
There are no more uneventful mornings on the Belmont Stakes workout watch now that American Pharoah has arrived, and he put on another great show during a 1 1/2-mile gallop here Thursday.
Forest Chatter and Lucky J Lane, two much improved hores, are the two leading contenders in the $100,000 Crystal Water Stakes for California-breds at a mile on turf at Santa Anita.
On Thursday, the Zayats announced that they would again be using trainer Bill Mott and that they plan to send him five or six 2-year-olds this year.
Dale Romans knew early on that American Pharoah was special. He was at a farm in Ocala, Fla., with several other of trainers who worked for Ahmed Zayat when American Pharoah breezed for the first time.
Trying to gauge what kind of Beyers the Belmont Stakes horses are likely to get is like trying to make a Beyer figure for the 2015 Preakness – a frustrating exercise with minimal context.
Bored to death with the whole idea of the Triple Crown in the wilderness since Affirmed won it in 1978? Can’t stand the suspense, now that another Belmont Stakes has arrived with the promise of a Triple Crown looming large?
