Hot Rod Charlie, third by a length behind Medina Spirit in the Kentucky Derby on May 1, jogged at Santa Anita on Friday, beginning preparation for an expected start in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes on June 5.
Promise Keeper and Overtook give trainer Todd Pletcher a complementary one-two punch in Saturday's Grade 3, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park, the local stepping-stone to the Belmont Stakes to be run here June 5.
Rock Your World, the winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 3 but a troubled 17th in the Kentucky Derby last Saturday, is a candidate for the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes on June 5, depending on how he trains in coming weeks.
A limited number of tickets for the June 5 Belmont Stakes will go on sale to the public beginning Thursday at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster.com, the New York Racing Association announced in a press release Tuesday.
Todd Pletcher's quartet of starters from the Kentucky Derby as well as his Kentucky Oaks winner Malathaat were all expected to arrive at Belmont Park Monday afternoon. Pletcher will monitor their training over the next week and talk with connections to see if any – or more likely how many – may show up in the Belmont Stakes on June 5.
If a horse based in Japan wins the Belmont Stakes, the horse’s connections will earn a $1 million bonus, the New York Racing Association announced Thursday.
A broadcast of the Belmont Stakes on Saturday on NBC drew 4 million viewers at its peak, when Tiz the Law won the race, according to network officials.
After Tiz the Law drew away from his nine rivals to win Saturday's $1 million Belmont Stakes by 3 3/4 lengths, trainer Barclay Tagg and his assistant Robin Smullen quietly left the box seats from where they had watched and walked down to the winner's circle. There were no high-fives or fist bumps, just a few congratulatory pats on the back.
While Gamine has a long way to go before being mentioned in the same breath as Ruffian and other greats, she does share a blood link with that champion as she is inbred to her speedy half-brother Icecapade.
In 2003, Sackatoga Stable and trainer Barclay Tagg made an unlikely run at the Triple Crown with Funny Cide, a New York-bred gelding from the first crop of his sire, Distorted Humor. Seventeen years later, Sackatoga and Tagg completed their personal Triple Crown with 2020 Belmont Stakes winner Tiz the Law, also a New York-bred and also from the first crop of his sire, Constitution. Distorted Humor, now 27, fittingly played a part in the story as well.
