Ruler On Ice Wins Belmont Stakes

Longshot Ruler On Ice wins the Belmont Stakes:

 Ruler On Ice posted a huge upset in the Belmont Stakes, taking the lead from Preakness winner Shackleford in the stretch and winning the final leg of the Triple Crown. Shackleford led from the start Saturday, but when the field of 12 turned for home in the 1½-mile Belmont, 24-1 long shot Ruler On Ice took over under Jose Valdivia Jr., and splashed home first, three-quarters of a length ahead of Stay Thirsty.
The much-hyped rubber match between Shackleford and Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom never materialized. Shackleford finished fifth, while Animal Kingdom got off to a terrible start, never got into contention and finished sixth. Jockey John Velazquez nearly fell off when Animal Kingdom collided with Monzon just after the start.

The Belmont Stakes Separates the Good from the Great

That's the case that Andrew Cohen makes at the Atlantic:

The Kentucky Derby gets the glory. The Preakness gets a pass. For my money, it is the Belmont Stakes, the third and final leg of racing's Triple Crown, which almost always sifts out the very good horses from the truly great horses.
And it will be no different this Saturday afternoon, when New York's Belmont Park hosts the 143rd running of the race. The very good Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom will be there (the 2-1 morning line favorite from the 9-hole). And the very good Preakness winner Shackleford will be, too (at 9-2 from the 12-hole). A victory in the Belmont for either of these colts won't just earn his respective connections some serious lettuce, it will also likely guarantee horse-of-the-year honors. Then again, the Eclipse Award could go to the horse which wins Saturday if it isn't either of those two.
For those colts and geldings who race in all three races especially, the Belmont is the most difficult of the three to win. The race is longer than either of the other two-- three-eights of a mile longer than the Preakness. The Belmont is raced five weeks after the Derby and three after the Preakness; a crowded schedule for any horse, much less a 3-year-old who hasn't raced much in his pampered life. And the Belmont field always contains fresh horses who haven't gone to Baltimore and/or Louisville but who have instead trained for Belmont's great distance.

He makes very good points.  As he mentions, 4 horses in the past decade came into the Belmont with a chance to win the Triple Crown, and all failed.  Today marks the 92nd anniversary of Sir Barton becoming the first horse to win the Triple Crown, since then, only ten other horses have accomplished the feat.  The Belmont is almost always the race that makes the difference.  The 1-and-a-half mile race, 5 weeks after going a mile-and-a-quarter at the Kentucky Derby, and 3 weeks after going a mile-and-three-sixteenths at the Preakness, is just brutal.  One other thing I wanted to include from his post is the video of probably the greatest thoroughbred performance of all-time, Secretariat's 31 length victory in 1973:

Animal Kingdom and Shackleford Get Rematch at Belmont

Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom and Preakness winner Shackleford each get a shot to win the rubber match at the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.  It is the first matchup of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winners at Belmont since 2005.  Here are the post positions:

1. Master of Hounds
2. Stay Thirsty        
3. Ruler On Ice        
4. Santiva     
5. Brilliant Speed      
6. Nehro       
7. Monzon    
8. Prime Cut  
9. Animal Kingdom   
10. Mucho Macho Man       
11. Isn't He Perfect  
12. Shackleford

Five horses, including last year's Belmont Stakes winner, Drosselmeyer, will run in today's Brooklyn Handicap.

Caleb's Posse Wins the Ohio Derby

Well it's not exactly the Triple Crown, but Caleb's Posse won the Grade 3 Ohio Derby at for 3-year-olds at Thistledown on Saturday:

Caleb's Posse came through as the favorite Saturday when rolling past longshot Marco's Fling to capture the 77th running of the Grade 3, $100,000 Ohio Derby at Thistledown in the Cleveland suburb of North Randall, Ohio.
With Eddie Razo aboard for trainer Donnie Von Hemel, Caleb's Posse returned $6.20 after finishing 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.12 over a fast track.
Marco's Fling, a 40-1 shot who led to midstretch under Filmer Munaylla, held second, 1 3/4 lengths behind the winner. Irish Lion was third at 15-1, while Le Mans, the 5-2 second choice, ran fifth, and Wilkinson, the 7-2 third choice, finished last of nine. Valient Tenobob was an early scratch.
Caleb's Posse raced near the back while saving ground from post 1 before angling out for his winning drive. A Kentucky-bred by Posse, the colt was bred by Don McNeill, who co-owns him with Cheyenne Stables. Before shipping from Arlington Park to Cleveland, he ran in all four stakes for 3-year-olds at Oaklawn Park this winter, winning the Smarty Jones and finishing second in the Rebel.

Shackleford Wins Exciting Preakness

No Triple Crown for another year:

It was only a few minutes after Triple Crown hopes had evaporated, barely, for the 33rd straight year, and Graham Motion was leaning on the rail leading up to the jockeys' room at Pimlico Race Course, an otherwise indistinct spot he knows all so well from two decades of running horses on the Maryland circuit.

Disappointment, fresh, was "a bitter pill," said Motion, who had just watched Animal Kingdom, the Kentucky Derby winner he trains for Team Valor International, come within a half-length of running down Shackleford in a dramatic 136th running of the Preakness.

With John Velazquez aboard, Animal Kingdom, the 2-1 Preakness favorite off his 2¾-length Derby upset at 20-1, launched a searing rally down the center of the Pimlico track after having only one horse beaten for much of the 1 3/16-mile journey. By any account, it was a courageous effort from the runner-up, and Motion, whose career had been perpetually praised and profiled for the last two weeks in the spectacular Derby wake, was somewhat shaken, but quite composed nonetheless.

Royal Delta Wins the Black-Eyed Susan

ESPN:

No telling whether her effort would have been good enough for her to be competitive two weeks beforehand in the Kentucky Oaks, but a clear-cut victory in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes was satisfaction enough Friday at Pimlico for the connections of Royal Delta.
After Royal Delta posted a flashy allowance victory April 15 at Keeneland, Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott mulled over the possibility of running the Empire Maker filly back in the Grade 1, $1 million Kentucky Oaks on May 6 at Churchill Downs. But employing his customary discretion, Mott waited for the Grade 2, $250,000 Black Eyed Susan, and it paid off with an emphatic, 2 1/2-length score in the traditional Preakness eve fixture.
"We thought she was a nice filly early on, but soon realized she was a little better than we thought," Mott said.
With Jose Lezcano settling her into a nice early stalking position after three other 3-year-old fillies went out for the lead, Royal Delta moved through a rail opening in the final turn of the 1 1/8-mile race, then easily wrested command from a weary Hot Summer before moving along to a 2 1/2-length triumph over Buster's Ready.

Today, Animal Kingdom tries to continue his run to be the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.  After so many near misses in the past 15 years or so, it would be nice to see somebody do it.

Preakness Post Positions Set

Animal Kingdom is favored:

The post positions were issued for the 2011 Preakness Stakes on Wednesday afternoon and Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom was slotted into the 11th slot. Now that the post positions have been released, new odds are also issued to reflect how the draw affects the favorites and underdogs. Although Animal Kingdom did not get the optimal draw, his spot did not remove him as the favorite. He currently sits at 2-1. Here is a rundown of the entire 14-horse field based on their current post position:
No. 1 Astrology - 15-1
No. 2 Norman Asborjson - 30-1
No. 3 King Congie - 20-1
No. 4 Flashpoint - 20-1
No. 5 Shackleford - 12-1
No. 6 Sway Away - 15-1
No. 7 Midnight Interlude - 15-1
No. 8 Dance City - 12-1
No. 9 Mucho Macho Man - 6-1
No. 10 Dialed In - 9-2
No. 11 Animal Kingdom - 2-1
No. 12 Isn't He Perfect - 30-1
No. 13 Concealed Identity - 30-1
No. 14 Mr. Commons - 20-1

Animal Kingdom Wins the Derby

Animal Kingdom wins and pays out $43.80.  Nehro placed and Mucho Macho Man finished third.  Animal Kingdom also won the Spiral Stakes at Turfway Park.

Life in the Infield at Churchill Downs

From the SI archive, a story about the NFL's Will Wolford's love of horses and the Derby:

"My goal was to play football long enough so I could own horses comfortably," Wolford says. "Treat them as an outlet, as a way to relax. It's not, 'Oh, gee, this horse has to win today because I got to pay bills.' I played five years in the league before I bought a horse. It's strictly done for fun."
Since Wolford was a boy growing up in Louisville, where Moe was a saloonkeeper-cum-horse-player, the Kentucky Derby has been his life's immovable feast. When Will was seven, on the family's way to Churchill Downs for the 1972 Derby, his parents dropped him off at a party of 20 other kids set amid a grim posse of baby-sitters. "We sat in front of the TV and watched Riva Ridge run around the track," he says. His ensuing Derby experiences extended through his four years at St. Xavier High and through four more at Vanderbilt University. The Kentucky Derby is a River City rite of spring, and for years Wolford partook of its rituals from the Catholic encampment in the infield at the far turn.
"If you went to a Catholic high school in Louisville and you went to the Derby, that's where you hung out," Wolford says. "It's a gigantic party. Everything and anything you want to do is in the infield at the Derby. You never see a horse when you're out there. Every once in a while there would be a wave, like at a football game, and everybody would scream, but you had a hard time seeing the horses. It got pretty wild. Drink beer and jungle juice—all kinds of juices mixed with grain alcohol. We used to hide it in the bottom of the coolers. In gallon jugs. Line the bottom of the coolers with beer, and line that with towels and ice. I always had a pint or two in my underpants."
Of his various physical accomplishments while attending St. Xavier, none is remembered more fondly than his last notable feat as a high school student. Wolford used to attend the infield bacchanal with a passel of athletic teammates—guys nicknamed Squirmy and Jaybird, Pygmy and Skinny—and at 9 a.m. on Derby Day of 1982, in the spring of their senior year, the boys found to their dismay that the lock was jammed on the trunk of the Mustang that held the day's ambrosia. The infield was beckoning. Chris Kurtz, one of Wolford's best friends, recalls that everyone looked to Will, then a buff 230 pounds, and began exhorting him: "You can do it, Will. You can do it!" Reaching under a corner of the trunk, he performed one prodigious squat thrust. It popped like a cap on a bottle. "He ripped the trunk right off," Kurtz says. "Amazing." To a chorus of cheers, of course.

This story reminds me of a friend's story about attending the Derby.  He said they took in 3 or 4 bottles of water, of which 1 or 2 were actually vodka, 3 or 4 bottles of orange juice, and then they poured vodka into the ice of the cooler.  When they wanted some vodka, they'd open the drain of the cooler and hold the cooler over a glass.

Plum Pretty Wins the Kentucky Oaks

Plum Pretty in the Winner's Circle.  Photo by Dan Dry

Plum Pretty holds off St. John's River to win by a neck.  Zazu finished third.  So I was 0 for 3.  Now for my Kentucky Derby trifecta call.  I'll go with Stay Thirsty to win, Mucho Macho Man to place and Nehro to show.  Smart money avoids all three.

Kentucky Oaks Post Positions

Oaks Day photo from Kentucky Derby facebook page

Here:

The 2011 Kentucky Oaks will run on Friday afternoon at Churchill Downs, as the three-year-old fillies race ahead of Saturday's running of the 137th Kentucky Derby. The post time for the Oaks is 5:24 ET, and the race will be aired on Versus. Here are the complete Kentucky Oaks 2011 post positions:

Post	Horse	Jockey	ML
1	Joyful Victory	Smith, Mike	5/2
2	Lilacs and Lace	Castellano, Javier	12/1
3	Summer Soiree	Saez, Gabriel	5/1
4	Kathmanblu	Leparoux, Julien	4/1
5	Suave Voir Faire	Mena, Miguel	50/1
6	Zazu	Rosario, Joel	4/1
7	Her Smile	Gomez, Garret	20/1
8	Bouquet Booth	Albarado, Robby	20/1
9	Daisy Devine	Graham, James	20/1
10	Street Storm	Bridgmohan, Shaun	50/1
11	Holy Heavens	Desormeaux, Kent	50/1
12	Plum Pretty	Garcia, Martin	5/1
13	St. Jonn's River	Napravnik, Rosie	30/1

The race is going to be broadcast on Versus.  My trifecta pick (remember, I know nothing) Summer Soiree to win, Daisy Devine to place and Kathmanblu to show.

Kentucky Derby Field Set

ESPN:

Dialed In was listed as the 4-1 favorite by Daily Racing Form national handicapper Mike Watchmaker after being assigned post 8 in a full field of 20 3-year-olds entered to run Saturday in the 137th running of the $2 million Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.
Dialed In, with Julien Leparoux to ride, has won three of four career starts and will try to become the third Derby winner for trainer Nick Zito, who won in 1991 with Strike the Gold and in 1994 with Go for Gin. Dialed In won the Florida Derby in his last start.
Uncle Mo, the reigning divisional champion, was pegged as the close 5-1 second choice after being assigned post 18 for the 1 1/4-mile race. John Velazquez has the mount for trainer Todd Pletcher, who sent out the 2010 winner, Super Saver.
"I think he ought to be able to relax and track the main speed," Pletcher said before the draw. Asked whether Uncle Mo is healthy, he said: "He's doing well." Afterward, regarding post 18, Pletcher said, "I was okay with that."
Archarcharch (10-1) got the dreaded post 1.
"We're just going to make it work," said Jon Court, rider of Archarcharch.
Other choices on the morning line are Nehro (post 19, 6-1), Midnight Interlude (post 15, 12-1), Mucho Macho Man (post 13, 12-1), Shackleford (post 14, 20-1), and Soldat (post 17, 20-1).
Twice the Appeal (post 3), with Calvin Borel to ride, is listed at 30-1. Borel has ridden three of the last four winners of the Derby.
Watch Me Go (50-1) got post 20 on the far outside.

The entire lineup and morning line is posted at the link.  It looked like 30-1 was the field bet.  20 horses racing always makes things interesting.

Derby Week Horse Story

From the SI archive, a reflection on Secretariat's life, by William Nack, who wrote the book from which the movie Secretariat was based:

Just before noon the horse was led haltingly into a van next to the stallion barn, and there a concentrated barbiturate was injected into his jugular. Forty-five seconds later there was a crash as the stallion collapsed. His body was trucked immediately to Lexington, Kentucky, where Dr. Thomas Swerczek, a professor of veterinary science at the University of Kentucky, performed the necropsy. All of the horse's vital organs were normal in size except for the heart.
"We were all shocked," Swerczek said. "I've seen and done thousands of autopsies on horses, and nothing I'd ever seen compared to it. The heart of the average horse weighs about nine pounds. This was almost twice the average size, and a third larger than any equine heart I'd ever seen. And it wasn't pathologically enlarged. All the chambers and the valves were normal. It was just larger. I think it told us why he was able to do what he did."
In the late afternoon of Monday, Oct. 2, 1989, as I headed my car from the driveway of Arthur Hancock's Stone Farm onto Winchester Road outside of Paris, Ky., I was seized by an impulse as beckoning as the wind that strums through the trees there, mingling the scents of new grass and old history.
For reasons as obscure to me then as now, I felt compelled to see Lawrence Robinson. For almost 30 years, until he suffered a stroke in March of 1983, Robinson was the head caretaker of stallions at Claiborne Farm. I had not seen him since his illness, but I knew he still lived on the farm, in a small white frame house set on a hill overlooking the lush stallion paddocks and the main stallion barn. In the first stall of that barn, in the same space that was once home to the great Bold Ruler, lived Secretariat, Bold Ruler's greatest son.
It was through Secretariat that I had met Robinson. On the bright, cold afternoon of Nov. 12, 1973, he was one of several hundred people gathered at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington to greet the horse on his flight from New York into retirement in Kentucky. I flew with the horse that day, and as the plane banked over the field, a voice from the tower crackled over the airplane radio: "There's more people out here to meet Secretariat than there was to greet the governor."
"Well, he's won more races than the governor," pilot Dan Neff replied.

The article is excellent.

River Downs Evacuates Horses

Springfield News-Sun:

With the spring rains causing the Ohio River to spill from its banks, River Downs race track in Cincinnati is in the process of evacuating all the horses off its backside, which sits about a furlong — just over two football fields — from the river.
“Believe it or not, there were 500 horses back there yesterday and I just went back again 10 minutes ago and they’re pretty much all gone,” John Engelhardt, the track’s Dayton-based racing publicity consultant, said by phone Friday afternoon. “There can’t be more than 25 left back there now.”
Flooding at this level requires the track to cut off electricity and water.
“Horsemen are a tight-knit community and officials at Turfway Park knew we were in a tight spot,” Englehardt said. “They had just closed their backstretch (after their racing season ended) but they reopened the barns and have allowed all our horsemen to stable there at no cost.
“Although the river has risen to 51 feet, right now it doesn’t appear to be too threatening. It’s not touching the main track. I can still see grass on the other side of the track. And I just heard a report that the river may be leveling out and we won’t get flooded like we thought we would.”
On Thursday the National Weather Service issued a flood warning for the Cincinnati area and predicted showers and thunderstorms through Tuesday. Flood levels were expected to cover the River Downs racing surface, parts of the stable area and cut off access to the track for several days.

Opening Day for racing is scheduled for April 29:

“That,” said Engelhardt, “is still the plan — God willing and if the creek don’t rise.”

Yesterday's Derby Prep Race Results

Brilliant Speed came from last to first to win the Blue Grass Stakes by a nose, and Archarcharch won the Arkansas Derby.  Off to Louisville.

This Week's Kentucky Derby Prep Races

We've got the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn.  Three weeks until the Run for the Roses.