Triple Crown veteran Todd Pletcher gave simple advice on Saturday to jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. before the Belmont Stakes.
“Be patient,” Pletcher said. “I think you have the best last quarter of every horse in the race.”
Sometimes Mo is less.
Mo Donegal withdrew from the home section and held the mare Nest to win the Belmont Stakes, giving Pletcher 1-2 and his sixth victory with Triple Crown, including four on this track on the outskirts of New York.
“To be honest with you, we were a little confident to take part in the race today,” said Donegal Racing CEO and co-owner Jerry Crawford. “When I turned home, I thought I forgot about it. I know Todd thought he could make a strong last quarter mile, and he certainly did.
Donegal circled the 1 1/2 mile course in 2 minutes, 28.28 seconds, ahead of Nest and Skippylongstocking. Pletcher, who lives on Long Island, added another title to Belmont after victories with Rags to Riches in 2007, Palace Malice in 2013 and Tapwrit in 2017.
Mo Donegal defeated a wide open field with eight horses without a clear favorite – We, the people, a monster in the mud, opened at 2: 1 against a rainy forecast, but reached 7: 2 by the time of the race until the rains stopped.
MO MO MO DONEGAL runs with Belmont Stakes, presented by @nyrabets! @iradortiz pic.twitter.com/FhPHpSQUVx
– Belmont Stakes (@BelmontStakes) June 11, 2022
Mo Donegal entered the goal as a betting favorite at 5: 2. We humans led for most of the race, but Mo Donegal and Ortiz took control, coming out of the last turn.
The 3-year-old stallion paid $ 7.20, $ 3.80 and $ 3. Nest – who almost became Pletcher’s second mare to win Belmont after Rags to Riches – paid $ 5.30 and $ 4.10, respectively, and Skippylongstocking returned $ 5.60 to the show.
Rich Strike, a stunning winner of the Kentucky derby at odds of 80 to 1, was sixth after owner Rick Dawson and coach Eric Reed supported him from Preakness with a view of Belmont. Rich Strike was the first solid derby winner to miss Pimlico since 1985.
Reed said the team encouraged jockey Sonny Leon to try to push Rich Strike out, but the horse kept trying to get back inside – where he made a late hit over 19 horses to win at Churchill Downs.
“I think we just made a tactical mistake,” Reed said.
Just like Rich Strike, Mo Donegal was at the bottom of the Derby group, but the stallion didn’t have enough of a hit in the Church Downs. He found it on Saturday, winning the 154th race in the $ 1.5 million race.
This is the fourth consecutive year that the Triple Crown races have been won by three different horses, for the first time for the sport from 1926-29.
The competition marked a return to form for Belmont itself after bets on 2020 were closed to the public due to the pandemic and the event in 2021 was limited to 11,238 spectators due to viral restrictions.
Capacity was again limited, this time to 50,000, due to fears of congestion stemming from the newly built arena next to the New York Islanders of the NHL. However, fans crowded the cars on the Long Island Railroad and breathed life into the 117-year-old track with flower hats, pastel costumes and the unmistakable musk of alcohol and cigars.
The stands were not as full as when the field hosted 120,139 fans in 2004. It is not a big surprise, given the unstable weather forecast and the lack of a contender for the Triple Crown.
The field was also sparse. No horse has run through all three legs of the Triple Crown this year, raising fears that three races in five weeks may be too tight a schedule to keep horses healthy.
The winner of Preakness Early Voting has been eliminated, likely to prepare for the $ 1.25 million Travers Stakes at the Saratoga Racecourse on August 27. Epicenter, second in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, also missed out.
In the $ 500,000 Acorn for 3-year-old mares, Matarea won 6 1/4. Beloved Echo Zulu scratched the post on the advice of a veterinarian on the track.
Trained by Brad Cox and ridden by Flavien Pratt, Matarea ($ 2.60) ran the mile in 1: 35.77, winning for the fifth time in eight career starts.
The highly-favored Flightline took a step back slowly, overcame a traffic problem and reached a 6-minute victory in the $ 1 million Hill ‘N’ Dale Metropolitan Mile.
The victory kept the 4-year-old stallion Tapit undefeated in four career starts. He was the first not to win with double-digit lengths.
Flightline ($ 2.90) was also driven by Pratt and trained by John Sadler.
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