Belmont Park: Broadway’s Alibi sent for exam, will miss Mother Goose

ELMONT, N.Y. – Kentucky Oaks winner Believe You Can is ready to return to the races in Saturday’s Mother Goose at Belmont Park. Unfortunately, Kentucky Oaks runner-up Broadway’s Alibi is not.

A scheduled rematch between the two – separated by three-quarters of a length in the Oaks – will not take place in Saturday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Mother Goose as trainer Todd Pletcher has sent Broadway’s Alibi to the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., for a physical examination.

Pletcher said Monday that he was not happy with the way Broadway’s Alibi has been moving during training and he wanted to let Dr. Larry Bramlage examine her to see if he could find an issue.

“She’s not quite herself,” Pletcher said Monday in his Belmont Park office. “Just want to check her out and see if there’s anything going on that we can’t see. She may come back, she may get a break, we’ll know later in the week.”

Noting that owner Joyce Robsham has previously displayed patience with her horses, Pletcher said of Broadway’s Alibi, “if we need to give her a vacation and bring her back in the fall, that’s what we’ll do.”

Before running second in the Oaks, Broadway’s Alibi had won the Grade 2 Forward Gal by 16 3/4 lengths at Gulfstream in January and the Grade 3 Comely by 3 1/2 lengths at Aqueduct on April 7.

Pletcher will still be represented in the Mother Goose by Disposablepleasure, last year’s Grade 2 Demoiselle winner who most recently finished second in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan at Pimlico.

Meanwhile, Believe You Can arrived at Belmont on Sunday following a van ride from Churchill Downs. She wasted little time getting reacquainted with Belmont’s main track, over which she won last year’s Grade 3 Tempted Stakes.

With regular rider Rose Napravnik aboard Monday morning, Believe You Can worked a sharp five furlongs in 59.75 seconds following the renovation break.

Daily Racing Form timed Believe You Can in splits of 12.71 seconds for the first eighth and 24.96 for the opening quarter. After going three furlongs in 36.43, Believe You Can zipped home a final quarter in 23.32. She galloped out six furlongs in 1:13.01.

“She’s fun to get on because she loves her job and she’s very, very good at it,” Napravnik said. “I actually let her go a little easy the first part, and she finished up great and she galloped out very well.”

Larry Jones, trainer of Believe You Can, was due in from Kentucky later this week.

With Broadway’s Alibi out, Contested will likely be Believe You Can’s biggest rival. Contested, winner of four consecutive races, including the Grade 1 Acorn here May 28, worked six furlongs in 1:11.97 on Sunday morning under regular rider Javier Castellano.

“I think she likes this track more than any track she’s been on so far this year,” said Jim Barnes, assistant to trainer Bob Baffert. “She goes over it very well. Churchill, she went over it good, but not as good as here.”

Contested, a daughter of Ghostzapper, won the Grade 3 Eight Belles at Churchill. Prior to that, she won an allowance race at Santa Anita.