For the first time since 1993, the Belmont Stakes will be run without a horse from the barn of trainers Bob Baffert, D. Wayne Lukas, or Nick Zito.
That trio of Hall of Fame trainers has combined to win seven of the 17 Belmonts run since 1994, with Lukas winning four, Zito two, and Baffert one.
With a 13-race card Saturday at Belmont Park, there will be plenty of wagering opportunities, including a trio of pick-four wagers.
The pick-fours will begin on races 2, 8, and 10. The all stakes pick-four that begins with race 8 will have a guaranteed pool of $1 million and consist of the Just a Game, Woody Stephens, Manhattan, and conclude with the Belmont Stakes.
It’s Good to Be Me is a dangerous horse coming off of a layoff, and he will be making his first start of the year in a $22,000 claiming race that headlines Northland Park’s Friday evening card.
The six-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up drew eight well-matched horses, but if It’s Good to Be Me runs as well as he did in his seasonal debut in 2009 and 2010, he will be tough to handle.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Master of Hounds arrived just days before the Kentucky Derby, then left town the day after his fifth-place finish in the race, bound for his home in Ireland, where he has been out of sight in the weeks leading to the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Like all horses when they are 3, Drosselmeyer only got one chance to run in the Belmont Stakes, and he made the most of it. But one year later, he still has the opportunity to run 1 1/2 miles at Belmont Park, and trainer Bill Mott has seized the moment.
Drosselmeyer, back at his favorite track and at a distance at which he is certainly proven, heads the field Friday in the Grade 2, $150,000 Brooklyn Handicap, a race for older horses that serves as a dress rehearsal for riders, and television crews, who will be back Saturday for the Belmont Stakes.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Inisglory launched himself to the top of the local 3-year-old division with a nose decision over Jump Up and Kissme in the $50,000 River Rock Casino last Sunday at Hastings. Inhisglory showed a new dimension in that he was a lot closer to the pace than he was when he came from last to finish second in the Jim Coleman Province in his first start locally. Both races were at 6 1/2 furlongs.
Nacho Friend, a game second on opening day when compromised by a lack of speed in the field, returns in Friday’s featured eighth race at Monmouth Park, a second-level optional $32,000 claiming race at 1 1/16 miles on the main track. But will he again have to contend with a controlled pace?
