For fresh Belmont contenders, time is on their side

ELMONT, N.Y. – It wasn’t long after the horses passed the wire in the Kentucky Derby on May 2 that trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, having watched his colt Frosted finish fourth, knew what he wanted to do regarding the rest of the Triple Crown.

“We’ve been pointing to the Belmont since May 3,” McLaughlin said here at Belmont Park.

He’s not alone. Of the eight 3-year-olds scheduled to run in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, five – Frosted, Frammento, Keen Ice, Materiality, and Mubtaahij – will have run in the Derby and skipped the Preakness to await the Belmont. It is a strategy that has produced six Belmont winners in the past 12 runnings – Palace Malice (2013), Union Rags (2012), Summer Bird (2009), Jazil (2006), Birdstone (2004), and Empire Maker (2003). That number could be fudged to seven of 12 if it includes the filly Rags to Riches, who won the Kentucky Oaks the day before the 2007 Derby and didn’t race again until the Belmont.

It could be argued that the current trend of most trainers to space their horses’ races is a major factor in making a Triple Crown sweep so much more difficult for the horse who comes into the Belmont with victories in the Derby and Preakness. The failure rate of Triple Crown bids since 1978 is well chronicled. American Pharoah would become the first Triple Crown winner since then if he is successful Saturday, a feat that eluded the last 13 who won the first two jewels in the Triple Crown.

But American Pharoah also would be the first horse in a decade to win the Belmont after simply competing in both the Derby and Preakness. That hasn’t happened since Afleet Alex in 2005.

“I always want time,” said McLaughlin, who won the Belmont with Jazil. “I don’t like running back in two weeks, fully realizing the Preakness is an American classic. I wouldn’t mind if the Derby was the first Saturday in May, the Preakness on Memorial Day, and the Belmont on July 4, but I understand tradition and all that.

“I don’t like to run back in two weeks. I don’t even like to work back in two weeks after a race, so I don’t like to run back in two weeks, though obviously I’d run in the Preakness if we won the Derby to try to win the Triple Crown.”

American Pharoah will be the only horse this year to compete in all three Triple Crown races. Last year, California Chrome was joined by General a Rod and Ride On Curlin. California Chrome won Derby and Preakness, but neither he, General a Rod, nor Ride On Curlin won the Belmont, which went to Tonalist. That horse skipped the Derby and Preakness and provided the kindling for the meltdown heard ’round the world, when California Chrome’s minority owner, Steve Coburn, called Tonalist’s preparation, “The coward’s way out.”

No one is seriously calling for the Triple Crown schedule to be revised, not those who have won it before, not those going for it now.

“It’s a tough series. It’s supposed to be,” Steve Cauthen, the rider of Affirmed, said during a recent national teleconference.

Penny Chenery, who owned Secretariat, on the same call said, “If you make it too easy, there would be more Triple Crown winners, and it would lose its validity.”

Bob Baffert, the trainer of American Pharoah, said: “I don’t blame” those who chose to await the Belmont and not go against American Pharoah in the Preakness.

“I think they feel like they couldn’t handle him two weeks later, so why not come in fresh, try to catch him when he’s pitched eight innings?”

While the trend toward more time between starts is far more obvious these days, it in fact has ebbed and flowed over the past 30 years. From 1987 to 1989, for instance, all three Belmont winners – Bet Twice, Risen Star, and Easy Goer – competed in all three Triple Crown races, with two of them thwarting Triple Crown bids in the Belmont.

Yet earlier that decade, trainer Woody Stephens won a record five straight Belmonts from 1982 to 1986, with just one of those horses – Swale in 1984 – running in all three Triple Crown races.

“And you could argue that Woody was the most successful trainer of all time in the Belmont,” said Todd Pletcher, who will send out both Madefromlucky and Materiality in the Belmont.

Pletcher has won the Belmont twice, with Rags to Riches and Palace Malice, both of whom were racing for the first time in five weeks. Materiality, like Palace Malice, ran in the Derby and then skipped the Preakness. Madefromlucky did not run in either the Derby or the Preakness.

Pletcher has run 43 horses in the Derby. He has had just seven starters in the Preakness. Madefromlucky and Materiality will give him 20 starters in the Belmont. Pletcher, as with McLaughlin, prefers to have time on his side.

“Part of it is the five weeks, part of it is the Belmont is on our home track,” Pletcher said. “By coming here right after the Derby, it puts us in a better position for the Belmont. If you’re not going to run in all three and you want to take your best chance in one of the two, I’m more comfortable preparing for the Belmont and not coming back in 14 days.”