Belmont stakes Races of interest

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Belmont Stakes

Your a star Hibby, cheers, wish we could see them.

check espn tomorrow night they might show the meeting

You could be right, thanks Pirates

Last years race

Mine That Bird and Borel bid for Belmont success

Preview: USA, Saturday 11.27pm BST (Live on RUK, free-to-air)

Belmont Park: Belmont Stakes (Grade 1) 1m4f, dirt, 3yo

THE 2009 Triple Crown season comes to an end as shock Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird bids to add another Classic to his CV in the Belmont Stakes.

But while the unheralded New Mexico-based gelding started as an unconsidered 50-1 shot at Churchill Downs, he is likely to start a hot favourite on Saturday in New York.

Should he succeed, Mine That Bird will have fallen just a length shy of sweeping the Triple Crown, his only defeat having come three weeks ago in the Preakness Stakes.

However, jockey Calvin Borel would still achieve the feat, having ridden the superstar filly Rachel Alexandra to win at Pimlico before getting back on the Kentucky winner at Belmont.



Calvin Borel and Chip Woolley
PICTURE: Getty Images

Borel would be the first jockey to sweep the Triple Crown on different horses.

Mine That Bird's dramatic rise in status reflects his come-from-behind running - if he hasn't come from nowhere, he has at least come from out of the clouds, as trainer Chip Woolley recalled when he looked back at his arrival at Churchill Downs.

"Nobody even came to see me for the first week," he said.
Borel certainly isn't lacking confidence in Mine That Bird.

"We're going to win it, no questions asked," he said, after Mine That Bird put in his final bit of work for the Belmont Monday morning at Churchill Downs.

Although Woolley hasn't gone as far as Borel, he also sounds fairly upbeat. "That's just Calvin - I'm fine with that,"said the trainer.

"I love a man who's confident, and he'll be comfortable when he gets on the horse because he won't be afraid."

Woolley added that Mine That Bird was doing better coming into the Belmont than he was coming up to the Kentucky Derby.

"He's looking super," he said. "With his running style, we're going to have to let him run his race.

"But the good thinghere is when you start slowing the fractions down, if you let him run his same race, he's going to move way up.

"If we can just be within ten or 12 lengths of them, I'm confident he'll have enough kick left."

He may well need it, because the Belmont has attracted a strong-looking field including several of those behind him at Churchill Downs and a much fancied new shooter in second favourite Charitable Man.

Twice a graded-stakes winner already at Belmont, he will be ridden by Alan Garcia, who partnered last year's surprise winner Da' Tara.

"We feel we've got the horse to beat," said McLaughlin. "Mine That Bird we have a lot of respect for but I wouldn't trade places with anyone.

"We've got a fresh horse, he's two-for-two on this racetrack, just won impressively here four weeks ago, and he couldn't be training any better. We're very confident."

If any horse in the Belmont has something to prove it is Coolmore's Dunkirk (Todd Pletcher/John Velazquez), the $3.7 million auction purchase who finished a well-beaten 11th in the Kentucky Derby as the 5-1 second choice after a troubled trip.

"I felt going into the Derby that this is a very good horse," said Pletcher.

"At the beginning of the race out of the gate, he stumbled, and when he got to the first turn he got squeezed back and lost position and I felt he never ran to his capabilities.

"He is training very well. He's put on weight since the Derby. I stand by the fact he's a very high-quality horse."

Kentucky Derby fifth Chocolate Candy (Garrett Gomez) represents Jerry Hollendorfer, who suggests he has been training well on the surface at Belmont.

"He ranks right up there as one of the best horses I've tried to take into the Triple Crown," said Hollendorfer, the dominant force for years on the northern Californian circuit.

"He's a beautiful-looking animal and covers a lot of ground and I hope he vindicates my opinion of him on June 6."

Summer Bird finished sixth in the Kentucky Derby, while Mr Hot Stuff was only 15th on his sole start on a dirt surface.

"In the Derby he had a wide trip," said Summer Bird's trainer Tim Ice.

"There were 19 horses in the field and two birds were trying to surround everyone - Mine That Bird on the inside and Summer Bird on the outside. I'm very hopeful. And I'm very confident."

The ten-runner field is completed by a pair of trainers who are no strangers to success in the Belmont.

The legendary D Wayne Lukas chases his fifth win with Preakness fourth Flying Private and Luv Gov, while Nick Zito, who has won with a pair of outsiders in Birdstone and Da' Tara, saddles two more longshots in Miner's Escape and Brave Victory.

"I think they're going to run well," said Zito.

"They might not be as good as the Mine That Birds or Charitable Mans, but on the other hand they didn't have the rigours ofthe Triple Crown prep races leading up to the Derby.

"If we have them where we think we have them, and they're strong, maybe lightning strikes twice. We've been lucky in this race and, hopefully, everything will work out okay."

ESPN are showing Belmont at 23.30 our time, only for the main race.

Guess I'll have to set the alarm clock, thanks Dave.

I will just have to come home a bit earlier tonight, well tell the barman to throw me out.

Can you not just drink quicker?