Jack Whitaker does not want to sound greedy. After all, having turned 88 on the day before this year’s Preakness, there already had been 10 Triple Crown winners in his lifetime. But then, when I’ll Have Another came through the following afternoon to beat Bodemeister in their Pimlico thriller, Whitaker let his mind wander through the memories of Triple Crowns past and figured it was high time to do it again.
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I’ll Have Another will be forced to make a subtle, but perhaps significant, equipment change when he tries to become racing’s 12th Triple Crown winner in the 144th Belmont Stakes on June 9, not because his connections want to, but because they are being required to do so by Belmont Park stewards.
I’ll Have Another, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, went for a one-mile gallop in the rain Friday morning at Belmont Park where on June 9, in the Belmont Stakes, he will attempt to become Thoroughbred racing’s 12th Triple Crown winner.
The Triple Crown series almost unfailingly thwarts horses who are not among the sport's all-time greats. In the past 64 years, only Citation, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed have swept the 3-year-old classics.
Countdown to the Crown returns for a seventh season online. Posted each Friday at DRF.com from Jan. 6 through the Belmont Stakes, Countdown keeps you apprised of the rising stars of the 3-year-old class.
Doug O'Neill, the trainer of Triple Crown hopeful I'll Have Another, was suspended 45 days, to begin no sooner than July 1, because a horse under his care exceeded the regulatory threshold for total carbon dioxide at Del Mar in 2010. The decision was released Thursday by the California Horse Racing Board after the board met for more than two hours in a closed session at Betfair Hollywood Park.
Field for the 2012 Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park on June 9. Odds by Daily Racing Form national handicapper Mike Watchmaker.
At the Fair Hill training center in Maryland, Union Rags worked five furlongs in 1:01 over a fast dirt track, according to trainer Michael Matz. Union Rags worked by himself under exercise rider Peter Brette.
Jack Sisterson, 27, is part of the team helping prepare I’ll Have Another for the June 9 Belmont Stakes and a run at racing’s Triple Crown, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished in 34 years. Sisterson is an assistant to trainer Doug O’Neill and is currently the one overseeing I’ll Have Another’s preparation while O’Neill headed home to California for a week following last Saturdays’ Preakness.
The methodology behind the creation of Beyer Speed Figures is much more science than any subjective determination. I'll Have Another's figures for the Kentucky Derby and Prerakness provide a classic study.
