[bc_video_id:291902:]It might be the Saturday between the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, but 3-year-olds still own the biggest race of the weekend, the Grade 2, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park. The Peter Pan is a local stepping-stone to the Belmont Stakes on June 8. The only other graded event Saturday is also for 3-year-olds, but for fillies on the turf, the Grade 3, $100,000 Senorita Stakes at Betfair Hollywood Park.

Peter Pan Stakes

ELMONT, N.Y. – Coming off an adventurous entry-level allowance victory at Aqueduct four weeks ago, Incognito makes his stakes debut in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park with an eye toward the Belmont Stakes.

A field of 11 was entered Wednesday for the Peter Pan, nine of whom are Triple Crown-nominated. The Peter Pan, run at 1 1/8 miles, is the local prep for the Belmont, scheduled for June 8.

While his former boss, trainer D. Wayne Lukas, and other colleagues make plans for Pimlico, trainer Dallas Stewart is enjoying the afterglow of a Derby in which he saddled the longshot runner-up, Golden Soul.

Stewart said he was “as proud as can be” of the way Golden Soul closed in the final quarter-mile to outfinish Revolutionary, Normandy Invasion, and Mylute for the $400,000 second-place prize.

“Nobody was going to beat the winner [Orb], not the way he ran,” Stewart said. “For a horse who wasn’t even supposed to make the race, we had a pretty good result.”

Trainer Todd Pletcher won the 2007 Belmont Stakes with the filly Rags to Riches. He may try to do it again with Unlimited Budget and/or Dreaming of Julia, the third- and fourth-place finishers in last Friday’s Kentucky Oaks.

“They’re both intriguing fillies at the distance; both ownership groups mentioned the possibility of keeping an eye on it,” Pletcher said Sunday at Churchill Downs. “We’ll see how they ship and how they train and such.”

Both Dreaming of Julia and Unlimited Budget arrived back at Belmont on Sunday.

Union Rags has been retired from racing because of the suspensory injury that was diagnosed a month after the colt won the June 9 Belmont Stakes.

Russell Jones, a longtime racing manager and adviser for owner Phyllis Wyeth, confirmed that Union Rags has made his final start and will begin his stud career in 2013 at a farm yet to be determined.

The final rating for the race portion of the Belmont Stakes broadcast on NBC on Saturday was a 4.8 with an 11 share, according to the network. The rating was up 12 percent compared to a 4.3 rating for the race portion of last year’s broadcast, and the share this year was up 10 percent compared to last year’s broadcast.

Although Union Rags and I’ll Have Another were the stars of this year’s Triple Crown, both had unfulfilling experiences that will always have their connections, and many others, wondering what might have been.

For Union Rags, winner of the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, his traffic-filled trip in the Kentucky Derby precluded any bid for a Triple Crown sweep, something his trainer, Michael Matz, thought he was fully capable of achieving.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Union Rags, who won the 144th Belmont Stakes here at Belmont Park on Saturday, was back in his stall at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland by 1 a.m. early Sunday and will get a brief vacation before pointing for major summer races, trainer Michael Matz said Sunday.

"He was out in his paddock from 7 to 9:30,” Matz said in a conference call with reporters on Sunday morning. “He went for a roll, then was eating some grass, was watching the other horses go out and train.”

The overnight rating for the race portion of the Belmont Stakes broadcast on NBC on Saturday evening was a 5.4, up 13 percent over the rating last year, according to the network. Share was a 13, up 18 percent compared with  the share for last year, the network said.

Business figures for this year’s Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park posted across-the-board gains compared to last year’s Belmont, according to figures distributed late Saturday by Belmont’s operator, the New York Racing Association.

The robust gains were altogether surprising given the circumstances surrounding this year’s race. I’ll Have Another, who was going for the Triple Crown, scratched out of the race on Friday, leading to speculation that business figures would be depressed.