On a highlight-reel day at Belmont Park, one race stood out for Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith.
“I really wanted to win this race for sentimental reasons, for Holy Bull,” Smith said after piloting Mor Spirit to a 6 1/4-length score in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, his fifth stakes win of the day.
“This was one of his best races, and I wanted to win this one for him today, and he did it. I said, ‘Run one more for the Bull,’ and he did it.”
In the first 148 runnings of the Belmont Stakes only four stallions sired three or more winners of America’s oldest and longest classic. Sixteen-time leading American sire Lexington holds the record, having sired four of the first 12 winners (General Duke, 1868; Kingfisher, 1870; Harry Bassett, 1871; and Duke of Magenta, 1878), and Lexington’s barnmate at the Alexander family’s Woodburn Stud Australian sired three (Joe Daniels, 1872; Springbok, 1873; and Spendthrift, 1879).
Aldrin, a half-brother to perennial leading sire Tapit, has been retired from racing and will debut at stud in 2018 at O’Sullivan Farm in Charles Town, W.V.
Court Vision-Pennywhistle, by Grand Reward
(Bred in Ontario by Patricia Weber and Robert Weber)
King and His Court represents relatively uncharted territory for both his sire and dam, but the early returns have been overwhelmingly positive.
Canada’s champion 2-year-old male of 2016, King and His Court comes from the second crop of sire Court Vision and will be his first Queen’s Plate starter. He is also the first foal out of the winning broodmare Pennywhistle.
Holy Bull, a Hall of Famer, the 1994 Horse of the Year, and a prominent sire, was euthanized Wednesday at Sheikh Mohammed Al-Maktoum’s Darley America base at Jonabell Farm in Lexington, Ky., due to the infirmities of old age. He was 26.
The son of Great Above resided at Jonabell Farm since his retirement from racing in 1995, and he was pensioned from stallion duty at the end of the 2012 breeding season. He will be buried at the farm.
The 1 1/2-mile distance of the Belmont Stakes will be uncharted territory for all 12 horses entered in Saturday’s race, and most of them will never stare down a race of that length again.
The Kentucky Derby poses a similar test at 1 1/4 miles five weeks earlier, but history has shown that the winners of the Derby and Belmont can be very different types of horses.
For all the accomplishments in his remarkable career, including victories in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Breeders’ Cup Classic, 1989 Horse of the Year Sunday Silence also lives in racing notoriety for one of his losses – an eight-length defeat at the hands of archrival Easy Goer in the Belmont Stakes, extending the Triple Crown drought of the time.
Roca Rojo has a chance to make a statement on Saturday as she takes on Dickinson and Celestine in the Grade 1 Just a Game Stakes.
The Irish-born mare won three of her first five starts in the U.S. last year, including the Grade 3 Athenia Stakes on the Belmont turf, and finished second by a nose to Miss Temple City in the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes. Roca Rojo continued her ascent by rallying to win the Grade 2 Churchill Distaff Turf Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard five weeks ago.
Twisted Tom will be the first horse to represent Cobra Farm in the Belmont Stakes. However, the historic property and the people currently behind it have already played a role in some major moments in the history of the last and longest American classic.
The property that became Cobra Farm was originally owned by Ben Castleman, who dubbed it White Horse Acres. Castleman bred and sold 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, the only horse to sweep the series while undefeated, off the property.
