Belmont Stakes: Forte comes up short after challenging Triple Crown season
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ELMONT, N.Y. – From juvenile champion, to Florida Derby winner, to being scratched as the favorite on Kentucky Derby morning, the roller-coaster ride that Forte has been on during the opening half of his 3-year-old campaign didn’t quite end on the high note that trainer Todd Pletcher and his owners – Mike Repole and Vinnie Viola – had hoped for with his second-place finish in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.
But there was every reason for the team to be both proud and confident that there should be many more big days ahead in light of Forte’s performance in the final leg of this year’s Triple Crown.
That Forte, with regular rider Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard, was able to rally to finish second – 1 1/2 lengths behind Arcangelo and a nose in front of his stablemate Tapit Trice – in the Belmont was encouraging, considering the way the race unfolded for the 2-1 favorite. Forte appeared to be floundering and out of contention, more than a half-dozen lengths behind the leader, with a quarter-mile to the finish.
“Irad said in the middle part of the race he couldn’t quite hold his position, he got shuffled back a bit, and it appeared to me he was a little bit off the bridle, which can happen when a horse hasn’t been out in a while,” Pletcher said. “But once [Ortiz] got him outside and in the clear, he finished well and was making an impact in the end. He just ran out of time.
“We knew we were asking a lot coming off the 10 week layoff, and I am so proud of the effort he gave. I thought this horse showed a lot of courage to run as well as he did, in this type of race, with 10 weeks in between” starts.
Pletcher admitted it’s been “a tough six weeks” since Forte suffered a bruised foot just 72 hours before the Derby.
“It’s so frustrating,” Pletcher said. “We had to scratch the Derby favorite the morning of the race. Mike’s had to do it twice now. We’ve had a really good record of getting horses to the Kentucky Derby and you have one like this, who was training great, and then have a hiccup a few days before the race. But that’s the sport we’re in.”
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Pletcher said he felt there was a lot of misconception regarding what actually transpired Derby morning prior to the decision by the Churchill Downs track veterinarian to scratch Forte, just 10 hours before the race.
“The horse had a foot bruise on Wednesday, he was better on Thursday, and better Friday, and even better still Saturday,” Pletcher explained. “It wasn’t perfect. All Mike was asking for, since it was only 8:30 in the morning, was for five or six more hours, to re-evaluate him then, because he was getting better all the time. We were never questioning at that point if he needed to run or not. We were just asking for more time to see if he would improve.”
In light of his performance Saturday, Pletcher was asked if he felt Forte might have won the Belmont if he’d had a race, win or lose, five weeks earlier in the Kentucky Derby.
“You just never know,” Pletcher said. “I thought the horse trained exceptionally well coming into the Belmont. It wasn’t like he ran out of fitness. He was still getting there at the end. But sometimes it’s not the conditioning a horse gets out of the race, but having the race itself that keeps them sharper for the next one.”
Pletcher, who had a bit of a roller-coaster ride himself on Saturday winning three races, including the Grade 1 Manhattan, before coming up short in the main event, said he is looking forward to mapping out a campaign for Forte as he heads into the second half of his 3-year-old season.
“We’ll sit down and make a plan,” Pletcher said. “The Travers will be part of that. We still have to decide what we do between now and then.”
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