With Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist out of the picture, Preakness hero Exaggerator will garner most of the attention here in the final 12 days leading to the Belmont Stakes.
Preakness winner Exaggerator got a bit more serious about his training for the June 11 Belmont Stakes with a strong gallop over the main track Tuesday morning that saw him go his last half-mile in 56.50 seconds.
Rain and a sloppy track made for an appropriate setting Monday morning, when Preakness winner Exaggerator visited Belmont Park's main track for the first time as he continued preparations for the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes here on June 11.
Creator will try a new distance at a new track with a new rider when he competes in the Belmont Stakes on June 11. For the past seven weeks, Creator has been stabled at Churchill Downs, where on Monday he worked five furlongs in 1:02, in company. Jockey Florent Geroux was aboard.
If Exaggerator has as smooth a trip in the Belmont Stakes on June 11 as he did Sunday shipping from Baltimore to New York, he’ll be even tougher to beat than most people think. Exaggerator, the Preakness winner and Kentucky Derby runner-up, arrived at Belmont Park shortly after noon Sunday, following a smooth four-hour van ride from Pimlico.
What is striking about the group of 10 potential starters for the Belmont Stakes is not one of them – not a single one – fits the traditional definition of a front-runner. None even fits a loose definition of a speed horse.
Two-time Belmont Stakes winner Mike Smith has picked up the mount on Suddenbreakingnews for the Belmont Stakes on June 11, trainer Donnie Von Hemel said Saturday morning.
Todd Pletcher has participated in 12 runnings of the Belmont Stakes and five times he has run more than one horse in the third leg of the Triple Crown. There's a strong possibility he'll run two horses in the 147th Belmont Stakes on June 11.
Trainer Steve Asmussen on Thursday confirmed Arkansas Derby winner Creator as a definite starter for the Belmont Stakes on June 11. Creator finished a troubled 13th in the Kentucky Derby after coming rapidly to hand this winter and spring in Arkansas and winning the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park by 1 1/4 lengths over Suddenbreakingnews, another likely Belmont runner.
In the wake of the highly disappointing news that Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist will miss the 148th Belmont Stakes because of an illness, the other 3-year-olds being pointed to the June 11 classic at Belmont Park are continuing unaffected with their preparations.
