Bodog Belmont Stakes Preview

Round three of the Triple Crown kicks off this Saturday, June 9 and we've brought in best-selling horse racing author Steve Davidowitz to talk about triple crown improvements and which horse can cut down Curlin at the Belmont Stakes.

By Jimmy Shipiro
Bodog Nation Contributing Writer

Bodog Nation: The Belmont Stakes is this Saturday, June 9 and there’s been discussion in the industry about the difficulty of a three-year-old thoroughbred running three long races in a five week period. What changes would you make if any to the Triple Crown?

Steve Davidowitz: Well I’d be very tempted not to make any changes despite all the uproar about how difficult it is and so on. And the reason for that is history. Stars are made out of those who complete the Triple Crown sweep. We’ve had a dozen near misses in the last 20-odd years, and six of the last 10.

If there was a lot of insistence upon a change I would tweak it only in one way: I would put the wait between the Derby and the Preakness the same as the wait between the Preakness and the Belmont. I would do three weeks to the Preakness and then three more weeks to the Belmont. There has been some talk about possibly even considering a one month break for each race. But I think that would just about destroy the Triple Crown as we know it.

BN: Do you think any changes will be made?

SD: It’s conceivable, though not likely. It’s sort of like the designated hitter in baseball, there’s a lot of opposition to that. You know, not only some of the National League baseball people but Little League, Babe Ruth League, highschool ball, college ball, the Minor Leagues, they’re all using the designated hitter so it’s not likely to happen. Even though there’s a lot of logic to it, a lot of pressure from different places for it. There's a tradition here and there is this whole unit, the Triple Crown, that has been run in this manner for well over 70 years. So it’ll take an awful lot for them to turn around and change it.

BN: With the defection of Street Sense, can anyone beat Curlin in the Belmont stakes?
Hard Spun and Street SenseHard Spun (left) is looking to win the Belmont Stakes after losing to Street Sense at the Kentucky Derby. (AI Wire Photo)

SD: Well I think Hard Spun has a real chance to do that. He’s shown great determination; he has a lot of good overall speed; he showed three moves in the Landsdown Stakes, which tipped off he was a good horse, and his second in the Kentucky Derby was very good. But Curlin ran such an amazing race and he still is a lightly raced horse, we have not seen his best yet.

I’m glad both of those horses are in the race. I’m very angry personally that Street Sense is not in the field. It would have made for a much bigger crowd and a lot more national coverage. But of all these horses that I think it hurts, believe it or not, it hurts Street Sense the worst. No one can guarantee that Street Sense is going to be sound and ready to run at his peak two, three, four months from now. Horses are too fragile. He’s fit, he’s ready, he should be in the race and he isn’t. That’s really too bad.

BN: Belmont ’s the only one-and-a-half mile racetrack in the country. How does that impact the running of the race and what role does that play in Belmont typically being the short field?

SD: Well it does play an interesting role because the effect is on a lot of jockeys. A lot of jockeys get lost on the Belmont Park racing strip, they’re going a mile and a half and many of them are used to making their moves as the horses go into the far turn. That’s typical in the one mile Kentucky Derby. That’s typical in the one mile track in Peleco. That’s even typical at one eights of a mile – one mile and an eighth track by Carlington Park and Golfstream Park and Saratoga and Aqueduct. Now you make your move at the top of the turn and you still have a tremendous amount of distance to go. You’ve got almost three quarters of a mile yet to run. A little less than three quarters of a mile, and you often find jockeys make their moves prematurely on the Belmont racing circuit especially when they go the full mile and a half and it can tap their horse’s energy out.

Now there is an interesting jockey issue in this race and I think it will be beneficial to Hard Spun. Hard Spun’s jockey Mario Pino who was so familiar with Pimlico having ridden in Maryland for all these years he made the one bad move that we’ve seen in the Triple Crown races. When he moved Hard Spun outside of horses while they were going very fast, making his move into the base of the race before they even hit the far turn. And he’s being replaced by Garret Gomez who’s been riding quite a lot in New York in the last few years and is quite familiar with Belmont Park and is a much more patient rider. So I think it will be interesting to see how he runs in the Belmont.

BN: A lot’s been made about Todd Pletcher who’s a great trainer but has not broken through yet in a Triple Crown event. You think he’s going to run either Circular Quay or Rags to Riches in this race?
Todd Pletcher"[Todd] Pletcher has to re-evaluate his whole approach to Triple Crown racing" - Steve Davidowitz. (AP Photo)

SD: My guess is no because he released the riders of both horses to ride different horses. John Velazquez was riding Circular Quay and he’s committed to Slew’s Tizzy. Rags to Riches had Garret Gomez and he’s committed to Hard Spun. So with those kind of signals it’s unlikely that he will. But even if he does, I really think that Pletcher has to re-evaluate his whole approach to Triple Crown racing. He wins a lot of prep races on route to the Derby and then he falls flat in the Derby. He rarely runs a horse in the Preakness. And he’s had a couple of okay finishes. Last year, Bluegrass Cat was second in the Belmont Stakes. But to win these races you have to train and set your designs on them. You can’t be wishy washy about well I want to run, I don’t want to run and I might run. And that’s what he’s been doing here.

BN: Last question, what horse that hasn’t run at the Preakness or the Derby has a chance at getting in the money for this race?

SD: I don’t think there is a horse that you could point to that can do that. You have Digger who’s an extreme long shot, who missed the Derby and the Preakness. And the other is a horse called Time Squared. He’s got no chance to win the Belmont. But there are a couple of horses who ran in the Kentucky Derby who missed the Preakness who aren’t complete throw-outs and one of them is Slew’s Tizzy. He’s certainly an okay horse. He hasn’t run beyond a mile and a sixteenth though, so it’s asking a lot for him to add another seven-sixteenths of a mile to his repertoire in this race.

Tiago ran okay in the Kentucky Derby, skipped the Preakness and trained very well out in California. I would think he has a chance because of his breeding - he’s a half brother to Giacomo who won the Kentucky Derby a couple of years ago. And the fact that he caught up to Street Sense after the finish line when he was galloping out in the Kentucky Derby suggests that he has some qualities. So those horses I would give a look as possible upsets to the two big horses Curlin and Hard Spun.

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