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

The Belmont Stakes Has 13 Entries

The Belmont Stakes has lowered ticket prices for this Saturday's third leg of the Triple Crown races, due to the fact that Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist is not running due to illness.  Since Exaggerator won the Preakness, folks were looking forward to the mile-and-a-half contest between the two winners.  Nyquist spiked a fever a couple of days after the Preakness, and has just begun returning to the training track.  But twelve other horses have decided to face Exaggerator on the track called Big Sandy, and the Graveyard of Champions. (Not that a lot of horses have died on the track, but wonderful winning horses have had their biggest defeats here - Secretariat and Man o'War, for example.)
   Of the colts running in the third race of the American Triple Crown series, only Exaggerator and Lani  will have competed in all three Classic races.  Exaggerator finished second in the Kentucky Derby, and won the Preakness; Lani ran ninth in the Derby and fifth at Pimlico.  Stradivari  (fourth) and Cherry Wine (second) are the colts to run in the Preakness and the Belmont, and not in the Derby.  Five other starters in the Kentucky Derby have decided to race in the Belmont, having skipped the Preakness:  Creator (thirteenth in the Derby), Suddenbreakingnews (fifth), Destin (sixth), Brody's Cause (seventh), and Trojan Nation (sixteenth).
   Of the 13 colts running, 5 are grey or roan, 1 is chestnut, and the rest (7) are bays and browns.  All of the colts were bred in Kentucky, except the chestnut Governor Malibu, who is New York bred.  Lani is still the single internationally raced colt, having raced in Japan and the UAE.  Several sires have two colts running - Giant's Causeway has Destin and Brody's Cause; Medaglio d'Oro has Stradivari and Forever d'Oro; and Tapit has Lani and Creator.   Several trainers have two horses entered, also:  Todd Pletcher has Destin and Stradivari; Dale Romans has Cherry Wine and Brody's Cause; Dallas Stewart has Seeking the Soul and Forever d'Oro; and Steve Asmussen has Creator and Gettysburg.
   Following are the post positions, the horse's name, their coat color, the name of their sire, and their opening betting odds:
1.    Governor Malibu  (ch)  Malibu Moon           12 to 1
2.    Destin  (grey/roan)   Giant's Causeway            6 to 1
3.    Cherry Wine  (grey/roan)   Paddy O'Prado      8 to 1
4.    Suddenbreakingnews  (bay)   Mineshaft        10 to 1
5.    Stradivari  (bay)   Medaglia d'Oro                   5 to 1
6.    Gettysburg (grey/roan)   Pioneer of the Nile  30 to 1
7.    Seeking the Soul (bay)  Perfect Soul (Ire)     30 to 1
8.    Forever d'Oro   (bay)  Madaglio d'Oro           30 to 1
9.    Trojan Nation    (bay)   Street Song (Ire)       30 to 1
10.  Lani  (grey/roan)    Tapit                                20 to 1
11.  Exaggerator   (bay) Curlin                               9 to 5
12.  Brody's Cause  (bay)   Giant's Causeway      20 to 1
13.  Creator  (grey/roan)    Tapit                           10 to 1

Lani is the only colt to have raced one 1/2 miles before - and he won that race impressively.  I'd like to see Exaggerator win.  With all the newcomers, and the horses who took a break since the Derby, I'm not sure who else I 'd bet on....  It'll come down to the horses' demeanor's Saturday afternoon....

Exaggerator Wins Preakness

There will be no American Triple Crown champion this year.  Nyquist, who was undefeated going into the second leg of the Triple Crown this afternoon, lost to Exaggerator, who had finished in second place, behind Nyquist in their four previous meetings.  Nyquist was the betting favorite, and most people had hopes of another Triple Crown winner, but it was not to be.  Nyquist popped out of the starting gate and was immediately engaged in a speed duel with two other horses for the first half mile.  As it was a wet track, most riders avoided the rail - except Kent Desormeoux, on Exaggerator.  Kent began his racing career at Pimlico and Laurel, and knows the track well. Other jockeys went wide around the track, but Exaggerator stayed on the rail and made up ground until the stretch.  Nyquist was tiring after a torrid pace, but finished in third place, just a nose behind Cherry Wine. Exaggerator, however, came out wide at the top of the stretch, swept by the front-runners and then angled back inside.  Stradivari, who was making his Stakes race debut finished in fourth place, with temperamental Lani in fifth.  The rest of the order of finish was: Laoban, Uncle Lino, Fellowship, Awesome Speed, Collected, and Abiding Star.  Uncle Lino was vanned off the track, after duelling early with Nyquist.  He had some inflammation in his left foreleg, but was not lame after returning to the barn area.
   Unfortunately, there were two deaths of horses in the Preakness undercard.  The first race was won by a 9-year-old gelding named Homeboykris.  He had been claimed last December, and was going to be retired and turned into a riding horse when he lost his interest in racing.  Homeboykris won his race, had his photo taken in the winner's circle, and began walking back to his barn.  He collapsed on the way, apparently from a heart attack.  Everyone was stunned.   At the end of the fourth race, on the turf, Pramedya took a misstep and fell.  Her fall was due to a bad break, and she was euthanized on the course.  Her jockey was taken by ambulance to a local Baltimore hospital, where he was treated for a broken clavicle.
  Breakdowns and injuries are the worst down-side of horse racing, for the creatures involved in running.  It comes with the territory - and it is upsetting and horrendous. I still remember Ruffian, and Barbaro - and I cried reading about Black Gold and other thoroughbreds who had the will to win, but whose bodies couldn't stand the stress.  I love watching horses run - whether in a race, or just out in pasture having a good time.  Having been involved with horses throughout my life, I realize that racing is a business, and money is, usually, the bottom line.  But I also know of pleasure horses that suffer missteps and are terribly injured.  I've lost horses to colic, to laminitis, to lightning, to old age, to liver and kidney failure.  I've seen them cast in stalls, impaled on fence posts, and completely wrapped in barbed wire...  Accidents happen everywhere - on the race track, and off.  On the farm, on rides, at horse shows, and on the road.  Even though our equine friends are generally much larger than we humans, they are still incredibly delicate creatures.  A single blow in a certain spot can kill a horse.  Running free, in pasture, having fun, a horse can turn an ankle, break a bone, fall and suffer a back injury - anything.
   I am never happy about the death of any animal - humans or others.  But death happens all around us, every day, in almost every way, shape and form imaginable...  I mourn for the two horses who lost their lives today.  But I cannot damn the racing industry - I have seen too much in 60 years of life on this planet.