ELMONT – Last July, I stepped inside an empty Colosseum in Ancient Rome and listened to the quiet, closing my eyes to imagine gladiators of the past battling in front of thousands of Romans.
Like the expansive sporting venue in Rome, Belmont Park will be eerily silent Saturday as the $1 million Belmont Stakes will be run by 10 combatants of the turf without spectators and owners present for the first time in history.
Belmont Park is a facility so colossal that the echoes of the 1,100-pound horseflesh and their pounding hooves will resonate more than ever.
Just five years ago, the same grandstand shook with fervor as a homebred colt named American Pharoah wiped away a drought that lasted 37 years to win the Triple Crown and return horse racing to the forefront around the nation. Sounds of joy reverberated across the expansive racetrack.
Belmont Park will come alive Saturday as home to the first major sporting event in the United States since the Super Bowl in February, in front of a nation whose sports-crazy culture has been rocked by the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s a different world today, and instead of the Kentucky Derby leading off the Triple Crown in front of its normal throng of 150,000 fans, the world will turn to the Big Apple for the first leg and to watch history from afar.
The Belmont won’t be run at its normal 1 1/2-mile distance, shortened by three furlongs to not ask these 3-year-olds to run a distance they’ll likely never run in this out-of-order Triple Crown series. Traditionalists hate it, but the year 2020 is anything but a traditional year.
Let’s be honest, we have horse racing and a Triple Crown to watch, so let’s just go with it.
Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse, who won last year’s Belo with Sir Winston, echoed that sentiment earlier in the week.
“Last year, with all the people, it was exciting,” he said. “But given the circumstance, we’re fortunate that we’re running. So if we have to do it without fans, then so be it.”
The $1 million race will go to post at 5:42 p.m. (NBC, Ch. 2) in the twilight at Belmont Park as Race 10 on a graded stakes-laden racing card. NBC will televise from 3 to 6 p.m., FS1 will televise from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and FS2 will carry two hour-long time slots from 2 to 3 p.m. and 6 to 7 p.m., bookending the NBC telecast.
In addition, the top four finishers will earn 150-60-30-15 Kentucky Derby qualifying points, respectively, so the top two likely will find themselves in Louisville on Sept. 5 for the Run for the Roses.
The horse to beat is one that returns a set of connections to a venue where 17 years earlier a Triple Crown attempt by another New York-bred colt, Funny Cide, was thwarted in the "Test of the Champion" on a rainy day in Elmont.
Tiz the Law (6-5) is the heavy favorite and would be the feel-good story of this Belmont should he triumph to capture the carnations. Manny Franco will ride the son of Constitution out of a Tiznow mare looking for his first win in a Triple Crown race.
Sackatoga Stables owner Jack Knowlton and trainer Barclay Tagg have been looking for the “next one” since Funny Cide's dual-classic success in 2003, and Knowlton thinks he found him.
“When I first saw him train at Saratoga, he worked well, he worked fast, not crazily fast like Funny Cide used to, but what impressed me the most was the way he galloped out,” Knowlton said during a national media teleconference. “The riders just couldn’t pull him up. He wanted to keep running and we thought that he was going to be a winner his first time out and he did that in Saratoga.”
He has added to Grade 1 victories since then and storms into Belmont as the top-ranked thoroughbred in the NTRA 3-year-old poll. He clearly will have a target on his back when he emerges out of gate No. 8.
“It looks to me like the horse is training sensationally and looks great on the track,” trainer Todd Pletcher said this week when asked about the favorite. Pletcher saddles Dr. Post (5-1) and Farmington Road (15-1).
Casse was even more succinct.
“I think if you beat him, you win,” he said.
For Casse, that would mean pulling off his own Triple Crown magic with speedball Tap It to Win (6-1) from the rail. The son of Tapit comes out of an allowance race over the track in which he smoked the competition.
He enters the race third on the form cycle, a positive, and after his sterling performance over the Belmont oval, he galloped out, strongly suggesting he wants more. The one-turn configuration of this year’s race should suit his running style.
The newly elected Hall of Fame trainer has won the last two Triple Crown races, with War of Will (Preakness) and Sir Winston, and will attempt to become the first trainer to win at least three in a row since D. Wayne Lukas trained six consecutive winners from 1994 to 1996.
Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez will ride in a record 24th Belmont aboard the front-running ridgling.
Pletcher is seeking his fourth Belmont winner in an attempt to reverse some bad luck since Tapwrit’s 2017 win. Failing to hit the board in the last two Belmonts has the white-haired trainer hungry to return to the Triple Crown winner’s circle.
Of his two entries, the lightly raced Dr. Post figures to be in the mix as they turn for home down Belmont’s long stretch drive. The son of Quality Road captured the non-graded Unbridled Stakes at Gulfstream after an auspicious start and will be a fresh horse Saturday.
Pletcher said Dr. Post reminds him a lot of his sire, who was a “big, sculpted colt” who had good tactical speed and versatility to run at different distances. With Irad Ortiz Jr. in the irons, he looks to be a contender and the potential main threat to the favorite.
In an interesting move, Sole Volante (9-2) will wheel back after running just 10 days earlier in a $100,000 optional claiming race at Gulfstream Park. Owned by Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and trainer Patrick Biancone, the son of Karakontie has not missed the board in six career races and should be considered in the exotics.
So we start this fractured Triple Crown season in the oddest of ways with 10 horses emerging from the Belmont tunnel ready to do battle to determine who will rule these hallowed grounds in the silence of a waning New York afternoon.
Post Time Outlook: 1 – Tiz the Law; 2 – Dr. Post; 3 – Tap It to Win; 4 – Sole Volante
Gene Kershner, a Buffalo-based turf writer, is a member of the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters Association, and tweets @EquiSpace.
| $1M Belmont Stakes, June 20 | ||||
| PP | Horse | Trainer | Jockey | Odds |
| 1 | Tap It to Win | Casse | Velazquez | 6-1 |
| 2 | Sole Volante | Biancone | L Panici | 9-2 |
| 3 | Max Player | Rice | Rosario | 15-1 |
| 4 | Modernist | Mott | Alvarado | 15-1 |
| 5 | Farmington Road | Pletcher | Castellano | 15-1 |
| 6 | Fore Left | O'Neill | J Ortiz | 30-1 |
| 7 | Jungle Runner | Asmussen | R Gutierrez | 50-1 |
| 8 | Tiz the Law | Tagg | Franco | 6-5 |
| 9 | Dr. Post | Pletcher | I Ortiz Jr. | 5-1 |
| 10 | Pneumatic | Asmussen | Santana Jr. | 8-1 |
| Race | 10 | |||
| Distance | 1 1/8-miles | |||
| Post Time | 5:42 EDT | |||
| Racetrack | Belmont Park |
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Spectator-free Belmont Stakes kicks off Triple Crown - Buffalo News
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