SARATOGA, N.Y. — Horse racing history of all kinds will be made in the final Triple Crown race of the year on Saturday.
The Belmont Stakes will be held at venerable Saratoga Race Course for the first time in the track’s proud 161-year history. While there won’t be a chance for a 14th Triple Crown winner, the third race will feature the winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes for the first time since 2013.
Five weeks after Mystic Dan finished by a nose to Sierra Leone in the Derby and three weeks after he finished second to She’s the Grey in the Preakness Stakes, the three will be gathered among the 10 runners in the Belmont Stakes for a rematch showdown before a sellout crowd of 50,000.
“Fans can identify with Mystique Dan and they can look at She’s the Grey and we can look at both and decide which one is better,” said She’s the Grey’s Hall of Fame trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, 88. “This year’s Belmont is going to be the best of the three horse races — the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont. I think they’ve put together probably the best of the three.”
One reason is that the shape of the track at Saratoga Race Course required the race to be shortened from the traditional 1 1/4-mile “Trial of Champions” distance to 1 1/4 miles, which is usually a big deterrent since most 3-year-old horses tend not to run that long of a distance.
Mystic Dan is a rare horse not aiming for the Triple Crown after running in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, becoming the first horse to do so since War of Will in 2019. And trainer Kenny McPeak almost certainly would not have brought him back for the 1.5-mile race.
“It would have been difficult for my colt. He’s not a very big horse, he’s a medium-sized horse,” McPeak said. “This race at 1.25 miles should suit him.”
This race is competitive, but not favored, and Sierra Leone, who has had a jockey change and equipment adjustments, started as the 9-5 favorite to win, with the unbeaten but less raced Todd Pletcher-trained Mind Frame second at 7-2.
Sierra Leone might have won the Derby had he not changed direction in the straight and repeatedly run into other horses, and trainer Chad Brown is hoping jockey Flavien Prat will guide the colt into open lanes whenever possible.
“If he’s ready and he can get going, he should run well,” Brown said. “We just hope it’s a good race. Obviously, it should be a little easier for him with half the number of horses to chase. We just hope it runs the same race as it did in the Derby.”
McPeak will likely get that win from Mystique Dan given the route he got from jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. at Churchill Downs. Also returning from that race are sixth-place Resilience (10-1), eighth-place Honor Marie (12-1) and 10th-place Dornoch (15-1), who is partly owned by World Series winner Jayson Werth.
What makes Belmont so attractive to horse owners and trainers is Saratoga’s setting: Saratoga will host races in upstate New York for the next two years while New York’s Belmont Park undergoes a major $455 million renovation.
“Everybody is anticipating this to be a truly historic and exciting weekend,” said Brown, who grew up in nearby Mechanicsville and became a horse racing enthusiast, attending the Saratoga Springs race track with his family. “For me personally, it’s an incredible moment to think that I might be able to win the Belmont Stakes, the first time it’s been held at Saratoga.”
That’s easier said than done given the depth of the field, but McPeek, who knows all the talent Mystic Dan will have to go up against to win two-thirds of the Triple Crown, didn’t shy away from it.
“The way the race unfolds is very unique,” McPeak said. “Mystic Dan is a very unique horse in that he has strategic speed, and I think that puts him in a position to win the Derby. And then of course there’s the way Sierra Leone’s opponents against Mystic Dan and She’s the Grey are running. There are horses with speed, there are close-running horses and there are close-running horses.”
“It’s going to be an interesting handicap race for both riders and jockeys. … It gives us another chance to prove ourselves.”
Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
