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Be part of the action as we cover the Triple Crown starting with the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. See the best of the best horses battle it out in the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships.
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Big Brown, who was made the 2-5 morning line favorite, will face 9 Belmont Stakes contenders for a shot at being the 12th Triple Crown winner. A loss in the Belmont Stakes means that Big Brown becomes the 19th horse to lose the Triple Crown in the last and longest leg of the Triple Crown series.
“If we were to lose this race, we would all be very, very disappointed,” said Big Brown’s trainer Richard Dutrow, Jr. “That would be the first emotion we would all have and it would be the most natural one. But, as time goes by, I think that it will settle in just what this horse accomplished in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.”
“I just don’t think there is any horse out there that can compete with him at this stage. The only horse that is even remotely close is Casino Drive and I’m not afraid of him at all. I have Big Brown,” Dutrow continued. “All you have to do is look at his races. He has the move he needs when he needs it, and I mean, he has just erased whatever competition he has faced.”
Second choice Casino Drive drew post 5 and will be ridden by jockey Edgar Prado, a two-time Belmont Stakes winner . Purchased for $950,000, Casino Drive is a half brother to the last 2 Belmont Stakes winners Jazil (2006) and filly Rags to Riches (2007).
“This is a very good horse,” said Nobutaka Tada, spokesperson to owner Hidetoshi Yamamoto and trainer Kazuo Fujisawa. “He has been through a lot. He hurt his knee when he was 2 and didn’t race until February. Then, we had to keep moving him from training center to training center and racetrack to racetrack when equine influenza came to Japan. He shipped from Japan to here, 16 hours with a stop in Anchorage (Alaska) and had to go into quarantine at Aqueduct and then came out and won the Peter Pan. The owner is a sportsman and this horse is bred to win the Belmont Stakes. That is why we are here.”
Denis of Cork is the 3rd choice in the morning line. The Belmont Stakes will be a rematch for Denis of Cork who finished 3rd behind Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby.
“He ran a big race in the Kentucky Derby. I know you can look at it two ways. First, you can say that he was never in the race and just ran around and got third. But I thought he ran a big race that day. He broke from post 16 and was angled over to the rail, which cost him some ground and he still finished up well,” said Denis of Cork’s trainer David Carroll. “He has trained well since then and he is bred to go long, so why not run him here?”
West Point Thoroughbreds’ Macho Again, who was 2nd to Big Brown in the Preakness, has drawn post 3 with jockey Garrett Gomez aboard him in the 2008 Belmont Stakes.
“I’m familiar with the Belmont and have great respect for the race,” Macho Again’s trainer Dallas Stewart said. “We came here because we believe we have a horse that belongs in this race. Big Brown is a very good horse, but this is a race where anything can happen. That’s why the Triple Crown is so hard to get.”
Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito, trainer 2004 Belmont Stakes winner Birdstone who spoiled Smarty Jones’s Triple Crown bid, will run Four Roses Thoroughbreds’ Anak Nakal and Robert V. LaPenta’s Da’ Tara in the 2008 Belmont Stakes.
“Anak Nakal and Birdstone are a lot alike,” Zito said. “Both had good two-year-old years: Birdstone won the Champagne and Anak Nakal won the Kentucky Jockey Cup. They both ran well in the Wood Memorial. And then they had good races in the Kentucky Derby. By good races, I mean that Birdstone finished eighth, not 18th. Anak Nakal finished seventh, not 17th. So, the Belmont is a race in which they can improve, and Anak Nakal is bred to go the distance, so why not?”
Anak Nakal is a son of Victory Gallop, who won the 1998 Belmont Stakes and ended Real Quiet’s hopes for a Triple Crown.
Da’Tara, who will race as a separate entry for horse trainer Nick Zito, exits a second-place finish in the Barbaro Stakes at Pimlico on Preakness Day. A son of Tiznow, Zito believes he, too, will handle the distance.
Julien Leparoux will ride Anak Nakal, while Alan Garcia landed on Da’ Tara. They will break, respectively, from posts 8 and 6.
Five years ago, horse trainer Barclay Tagg was in the position of winning the Triple Crown with Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Funny Cide. Now, he will try to be the upsetter with Aqueduct’s Wood Memorial winner Tale of Ekati who will be ridden by jockey Eibar Coa in the Belmont Stakes.
“The thing about the Belmont is that you never know what will happen,” Tagg said. “Funny Cide caught a track that he hated. The mile and a half is always a question. But I have a horse that is training well who I think can get the distance.”
Icabad Crane, with jockey Jeremy Rose aboard, was third in the Preakness while racing much farther back than usual. Icabad Crane appears to be a horse that will appreciate added distance, and certainly trainer H. Graham Motion knows how to get horses to go long.
“We have a very consistent horse who has never been worse than third,” Motion said. “He is still learning, but he is a much different horse than he was earlier this year.”
Trainer Todd Pletcher won his first Belmont Stakes last year with Rags to Riches, who became one of only three fillies and the first in 102 years to win the Belmont Stakes. This year, he will go with Ready’s Echo, who ran third in the Peter Pan. Jockey John Velazquez, who rode Rags to Riches last year, will break from post nine with Ready’s Echo.
A last-minute entry to the Belmont Stakes on Wednesday was Fred Seitz’ Guadalcanal, a Graeme Hall colt who will be making his sixth career start. He has yet to win, but Seitz is encouraged by the colt’s nose loss in a 1 1/2-mile turf race at Churchill Downs on May 23. Jockey Javier Castellano picked up the mount and will break from post 2.
“We buy all of our horses through Dr. David Lambert, who is a heart scanner,” Seitz said. “This horse has the heart of a stayer and it is a good heart as well. In his last race, he showed that he loves the distance. If you break the chart down, you will see that he got the last half-mile in 48 2/5 and the last quarter in 23 2/5.”
“We’re not kidding ourselves. We know that we will be an extreme long shot here,” Seitz added. “But this race is all about getting the mile and a half, and we believe we have a horse that can do just that.”
On Saturday, June 7th, Big Brown is set to make a run at horse racing history at the Belmont Stakes. Bet on his run for the Triple Crown at the Bodog Racebook and get live horse racing odds, weekly rebates, and in depth editorial coverage for the big event. Sign-up at Bodog Racebook and get $100 match-up bonus when you deposit the same amount! This offer is good for new sign-ups only. Use this link to take advantage of this promotion.
The 2008 Belmont Stakes is the 11th horse race in Belmont Park’s 13-race progam on June 7. Belmont Stakes post time is 6:25 p.m. EDT.
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