BELMONT PARK
Track: Fast
Weather: Clear
Temp.: 74
ELMONT, N.Y. – About the only impressions Lani made while training at Churchill Downs in the weeks leading up to the Kentucky Derby were negative ones. In fact, his temperament was such that he was given permission to leave the paddock well in advance of his 19 rivals in Kentucky Derby for both his own safety and that of the large crowd in the saddling enclosure.
ELMONT, N.Y. – 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.
He went better than a two-minute clip – 15 seconds per eighth-mile – from the three-eighths pole to the 1 3/8-miles pole on a warm, humid morning on Long Island.
Julie Clark, assistant to trainer Keith Desormeaux, said Tuesday’s exercise was designed to put “air in his lungs and stretch him out.”
ELMONT, N.Y. – 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.
Shortly before 8 a.m., with heavy showers having turned to lighter rain, Exaggerator came through the paddock tunnel, went off the right way, and, after jogging for an eighth of a mile, galloped about 1 1/2 miles over the sloppy track. Exaggerator pulled up at the 1 3/8-mile pole, walked back through the paddock, and went home.
Creator will try a new distance at a new track with a new rider when he competes in the Belmont Stakes on June 11.
Creator, who won the Arkansas Derby before a troubled 13th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby, will make his first start at Belmont Park in the last and longest of the Triple Crown races, the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes, and he’ll be ridden by New York-based Irad Ortiz Jr., who was announced on Monday as Creator’s Belmont jockey.
ELMONT, N.Y. - 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.
With a set of Saturday stakes results that fell shy of noteworthy, this seems like a good time to talk a little Belmont Stakes, and specifically what is to me the most interesting aspect to this Belmont – the abject lack of pace.
As of Sunday morning, Daily Racing Form has 10 listed as possible Belmont Stakes starters. They are, in alphabetical order: Brody’s Cause, Cherry Wine, Creator, Destin, Exaggerator, Governor Malibu, Lani, Stradivari, Suddenbreakingnews, and Wild About Deb.
Jockey Mike Smith and trainer Donnie Von Hemel both began their careers some 30-plus years ago in the Midwest at tracks like Ak-Sar-Ben, Canterbury Downs, Oaklawn Park, and Remington Park. Both well accomplished all these years later, they will team anew June 11 to try to take down the Belmont Stakes with Suddenbreakingnews, whom Von Hemel on Saturday said Smith would ride for the first time in the final leg of the Triple Crown.
ELMONT, N.Y. – 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.
Destin, the sixth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, is a definite starter for the Belmont. With each passing day from last Saturday’s Preakness Stakes, Stradivari is making his case to run back in the 1 1/2-mile race.
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.
