My take on the Belmont

[Thehoarsehorseplayer]

The story of this year\'s Belmont will forever be to me how the bluebloods of the New York racing world refused to let an upstart from Philadelphia Park win the triple crown on their home court.
Servis knew what was coming.  He was taped last week talking about how he expected some \"strange instructions\" to be given to some of the other riders.  And I guess in my naivity I thought he was saying that he was expecting to have to overcome some rough riding by his competitors.
But you don\'t have to look any further than the race Purge ran to uncover some \"strange\" riding instructions.  As far as I can tell the only thing Purge was in that race for was to \"pressure\" Smarty Jones.
On paper Purge had the ability to be the pace setter.  And I think it was the potential of Purge\'s early speed that forced Elliot to race for position early.
But Purge chose not to grab the lead and thereby string the horses out.  He chose to take up a position that forced a \"pocket\" of pressure around Smarty, from which, as has been pointed out by others, Smarty never got a breather.
And so Smarty turned for home.  And for a brief moment the question was how many lengths is he going to win by?  (And maybe it wasn\'t a lack of nerve which prompted Elliot\'s early move, but a media induced conviction that he was obligated to chase the ghost of Secretariat.)  But here comes Birdstone, rested and trained by Zito over the deep Oklahoma Training Track, as has been pointed out by a previous astute poster, to run the exact type of off the pace race he ran.
And at that point there was not much Elliot was going to do.  Chavez might have whipped the horse home, Pincay might picked up his head and  carried him over the wire, Shoe or Julie might have sweet talked him to victory with their hands, but Elliot is Elliot.  He\'s a pretty good rider on the Pennsylvania circuit who, looking into the glare of the headlights, did the best he could and the horse came in second.
That\'s horse racing.  And that\'s the Triple Crown.  Again, this ain\'t no Mud Club, this ain\'t no disco, this ain\'t no fooling around.
This was the Belmont Stakes with a Triple Crown on the line. And I think Servis was absolutely correct to presume the heavy weights in the racing/breeding industry were going to do everything they could to insure that their most cherised prize was not going to go to an upstart Pennsylvania bred from Philadelphia Park.
But there\'s always next year.



Post Edited (06-07-04 20:14)

[fasteddie]

I love conspiracy theories, but this is crap! The best horse won, and if you run this race a hundred times it would come out the same. The distance took it\'s toll, and his pedigree FINALLY caught up with him.

[HP]

Total nonsense.

They were working on getting Purge to rate in the Peter Pan. Bailey was on the radio Friday saying he was going to go early. Jason Orman was saying he would tell Solis to lay close and \"not let him get away from us.\" There was no deception or \"strange\" instructions. Everyone did exactly what they said they were going to do ahead of time.  

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM dictates that Belmont winners are horses that stay close to the pace. I read it in at least TEN articles leading up to the race.

Finally, no one put a gun to Elliot\'s head and told him to take the lead. If Purge wasn\'t going to be on the lead, Smarty looked like the most likely candidate to set the pace and that\'s what he did.

Maybe the bluebloods should have just let Smarty win. Like they did with Secretariat.

HP

[miff]

I don\'t buy the conspiracy theory. I will say that Bailey/Hennig had a brilliant stategy,go after SJ early with a common horse and still win, yeah right!!. You will never see Bailey sitting in perfect position and move that early in that long a race.His sole pupose was to force SJ early and get him beat,IMHO.

[Thehoarsehorseplayer]

By coincidence this article appeared under Ray Kerrison\'s byline in the New York Post this morning (which I read after posting my piece)
Jocks \"sacrificed\"
Smarty Jones\'trainer John Servis charged yesterday that jockeys riding in the Belmont Stakes \"sacrificed\" their own horses to get the public idol beatean and deny him the Triple Crown.
\"He cited two jockeys in particular-Jerry Bailey on Eddington and Alex Solis on Rock Hard Ten-for aggressive tactics that led to Smarty\'s downfall.
The biggest thing in Smarty Jones\' defeaat is that he did not settle,\" said Servis. \"He could not get a breather.  Bailey pushed Eddington right up along-side him.  Then, as soon as Smarty put him away, Solis on Rock Hard Ten came had us.
Those guys had nothing to lose so they sacrificed their horses to push Smarty along.  I\'m sure that Bailey and Solis would have been much happier, sitting off the pace, stalking but when you don\'t have anything to lose, you pull out all the stops.
I don\'t know how there horses came out of it, but ours came out pretty good.  But, unfortunately, it cost us the race.\"
Sour grapes?  Not a bit.  Servis was explaining what happened rather than protesting.
\"That\'s horse racing,\" he shrugged. I think Stew Elliott was upset at what the other jockeys did because he knew they were sacrificing their horses, but that\'s what makes the Triple Crown so tough.\"

[jimbo66]

This article was the first really classless thing that Servis has done during this run.  To insinuate that Bailey and Solis \"sacrificed\" their horses to stop Smarty is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in years.  Both thought they had horses that could run 1 1/2 miles and had horses that needed aggressive rides.  Both riders said before the Belmont that they would be part of the early pace and their workouts showed that the trainers were sharpening their horses speed.  They both made moves that had their horses been good enough, could have been winning moves.  Smarty put them both away, so they got beat.  No \"sacrifices\".  Just horse racing.

[miff]

The next time you see Jerry Bailey put his horse under a ride after a half mile in a distance race will be the second time.The first was the Belmont.

[Florida Phil]

I couldn\'t agree with you more Jimbo.  A classless statement by Servis, if he in fact stated it that way.  It is absurd to suggest Bailey and Solis would give up their chance at victory and the money that goes with it.

[TGJB]

This article appeared in the Post. A few years ago they ran some quotes from Baffert attacking me for some comments I made in my DRF article saying Silver Charm was only 25% to win the Belmont, and when I talked to him a few months later he told me they were some off the cuff comments not intended to be nearly as hot as they sounded-- we became pretty friendly. Last week, the Post \"quoted\" me as well, and juiced up my comments to make them more sexy. I\'m pretty friendly with Kerrison (I named a horse after him, he wrote a pretty funny column when he found out it was a gelding), and he has treated me well in his Triple Crown pieces over the years. But no heat, no story-- my guess is that Servis was not accusing anyone of anything, just saying the pressure cost SJ the race.

[Silver Charm]

>Chavez might have whipped the horse home

The animal rights lovers watching on TV would have had a field day with that one.

There were 100 Million or more interested observers Globally on this race. You would have needed a jackhammmer to drive a nail up Stu\'s you-know-what when those gates opened. All things considered his ride was pretty good.....for a mile and a quarter.

TGJB,

Tell Bob that one hour a day work ethic he was bragging about two years ago is really clicking now.

[P-Dub]

I have no problem with Servis\' comments. A lot of people feel the same way. RHT and Eddington are not front running horses. If training them to race closer to the pace was such a great idea, why were they plodding along 10+ lengths behind SJ at the wire?? This was the same tactic employed when Cigar got beat at Del Mar. Mandella ambushed Cigar with 2 horses. One of them finished up the track after pressuring him from the outside, Dare and Go (Solis) picked up the pieces for the win. Cigar was valiant in defeat that day just as SJ was on Saturday. Bailey and Solis knew they had no chance to beat SJ no matter what strategy they used. Their only satisfaction was denying SJ the TC. To me the real jerk was Bailey. He had no business prompting the pace. But thats horse racing.

[TGJB]

If I had to guess (and I don\'t), the other jocks who thought they had a chance going in thought they had no chance if SJ was allowed to gallop along. Keep in mind the half was 48 3/5, and he was the one who was supposed to be tired and likely to crack under pressure. When he moved after the half they probably felt they had no choice but to move with him. Also keep in mind that the last quarter was into a pretty good wind-- given that it was a little slow (which was to be expected given the fast 1 1/4), but nothing crazy. I don\'t think the other jocks were trying to do anything other than win-- if they didn\'t, SJ winning would have been good for the game, and for them (at least that was the prevailing opinion).
The big question is, what the hell was Bailey doing OUTSIDE SJ around the first turn. He is now riding everything like he\'s on a 3/5 shot, unless he\'s trapped inside like he was in the F&M turf race.

I agree with JB on his issue.

The other connections probably thought if they pressured SJ he might falter first and if they didn\'t they could never catch him.

As is often the case when horses of similar overall ability hook up, the one with more \"brilliance\" puts away the others because the main speed horse is racing somewhat within himself and the others are being used much harder to keep up. Smarty is a better and more brilliant horse. He killed them but they took some starch out of him too.



Post Edited (06-07-04 15:01)

[gowand]

I think people are underestimating what a great race Smarty ran on Saturday.  He has proven to be a special animal and it took a special set of circumstances in a one and one-half mile race to get him beat by one length. Birdstone had a terrible pattern but did have back class and some excuses.  He jumped up big while having the race set up perfectly.  I don\'t think you can fault Elliot, Servis, Bailey or Solis.  Purge clearly did not want the lead.  He was not going to let Smarty sit chilly on his flank and go by him when he wanted.  At the same time you can\'t fault Bailey and Solis for trying to stay close with a horse who has this much natural speed and can also rate.  It was a lose-lose situation for any horse who possesed some natural speed.  Use it or be six lenghts behind on the far turn.  Birdstone had no choice but to run the race he did.  His lack of speed helped him in this instance but 99 out of 100 time Smarty would not have come back to him.  No conspiracy, just the way things played out.

[MO]

Regarding conspiracy theories, imagine these possible scenarios:

A insider at Visa offers Elliot $1,000,000 to lose the race. That\'s $440,000 more than he would make by winning the race and Visa saves $4 million.

There\'s a reason no horse based outside of NY has ever won the triple crown. NY has an ego about the triple crown as big as Kentucky has about the Derby. Maybe they paid off the jocks to kill off any non-NY based horse from winning the TC.

It could happen.