Creator Wins Belmont Stakes

Creator, the son of Tapit and winner of the Arkansas Derby, won the 148th running of the Belmont Stakes yesterday by a nostril.  Nyquist, the winner of the Kentucky Derby, did not run, after becoming ill after the Preakness.  Exaggerator, who won the Preakness, looked good and trained well for the Belmont, and was the betting choice.  He certainly looked regal and cool.  Had  Exaggerator won yesterday's race, he would have been the first horse since Nashua - 58 years ago - who ran second in the Derby and then won the final two legs of the Triple Crown.  There were thirteen runners in the Belmont yesterday; Exaggerator finished eleventh.  The only other horse to run in all three legs of the TC races finished third.
  I laughingly noted there were five greys, one chestnut, and seven bay/browns running in the race.  Grey (or roan) horses finished in the first, second and third places, with the chestnut in fourth.  The other two greys finished in seventh and eighth places.  Sons of Tapit finished in first aand third places; sons of Giant's Causeway finished in second and sixth places; sons of Medaglia d'Oro finished in the fifth and thirteenth places.
   Kent Desormeoux, jockey of Exaggerator, said the colt had no excuses for his eleventh place finish; that he was just tired and it wasn't his day to win.  It looked to me as if Exaggerator wanted to blast to the front of the pack with Gettysburg, but that Kent held him back, and that Exaggerator didn't like it.  Then, when Kent asked the big bay to run, he just didn't have anything left.
   The full order of finish, with Creator defeating Destin by a nostril, follows:
1.    Creator
2.    Destin
3.    Lani
4.    Governor Malibu
5.    Stradivari
6.    Brody's Cause
7.    Cherry Wine
8.    Gettysburg
9.    Suddenbreakingnews
10.  Trojan Nation
11.  Exaggerator
12.  Seeking the Soul
13.  Forever d'Oro