ELMONT, N.Y. - The trainers of Essential Quality and Hot Rod Charlie were pleasantly surprised by how well their 3-year-olds looked Sunday morning after their knockdown, drag-out stretch battle in Saturday’s $1.5 million Belmont Stakes won by Essential Quality.
Essential Quality trainer Brad Cox said the way his horse was behaving Sunday morning, “he looks like he didn’t even run.
Turf and dirt, Belmont Stakes Day turned out well for trainer Chad Brown.
Three-year-old filly Search Results won the Grade 1 Acorn over one mile on dirt, while Brown ran one-two in the Grade 1 Manhattan as Domestic Spending assumed a clear position as North America’s best grass horse with a comfortable win over the Brown-trained pacesetter Tribhuvan.
Total betting on the Belmont Stakes on Saturday afternoon was $60.46 million, a 13.6 percent increase over handle the last time the race was held in its traditional place on the Triple Crown calendar in 2019, according to the New York Racing Association.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Doug O’Neill was probably a lot less surprised than most to see Hot Rod Charlie on the lead from the outset of Saturday’s Belmont Stakes. In the paddock prior to the race, he and jockey Flavien Prat had discussed the possibility of sending “Charlie” to the front, in part to avoid the early trouble that arguably cost him the victory five weeks earlier in the Kentucky Derby.
A compromised start and wide trip sent ESSENTIAL QUALITY to his first defeat in the Kentucky Derby five weeks ago, but he benefitted from a gorgeous trip and advantageous pace Saturday to re-establish his position as the best 3-year-old male in the land by taking the Belmont Stakes over a stubborn HOT ROD CHARLIE, who ran too good to lose the way the race unfolded.
A few points before delving into the race itself:
ELMONT, N.Y. - On the morning after Essential Quality finished fourth in the Kentucky Derby, his first career defeat, trainer Brad Cox recalled how the first time he watched the horse work out, he told his assistant the horse would win the Belmont Stakes.
It sounded hyperbolic. It proved prophetic.
Results and payouts from the 153rd running of the Belmont Stakes on June 5, 2021, at Belmont Park, won by Essential Quality.
2 Essential Quality – $4.60 / $3.00 /$2.60
4 Hot Rod Charlie – $4.10 /$2.90
3 Rombauer – $3.50
6 Known Agenda
1 Bourbonic
7 Rock Your World
8 Overtook
5 France Go de Ina
$1 Exacta (2-4) – $7.50
50-cent Trifecta (2-4-3) – $10.85
$1 Double (4-2) – $5.00
$1 Pick Three (3-4-2) – $59.00
50-cent Pick Four (8/3/4/2) –$269.25
By historical standards, the eight-runner field in the Belmont Stakes is already small. It’s even smaller considering three entrants are field-fillers with little more than a prayer.
But five runners in the Belmont are legit – once-beaten favorite Essential Quality, Preakness winner Rombauer, Kentucky Derby third-place finisher Hot Rod Charlie, likely pacesetter Rock Your World, and late-runner Known Agenda.
One can make a case the final outcome of the Kentucky Derby, in part, came down to trips with many of the leading candidates having their chances compromised by unlucky runs of varying degrees. Many of those horses will meet again Saturday in the Belmont Stakes. Primary among that group is KNOWN AGENDA, who was completely eliminated from contention after the opening furlong of the Derby when put in tight quarters along the rail and forced to steady back to near the rear of the field in a race ultimately dominated by horses racing on or close to the lead.
