Congratulations to Ruler On Ice Winner of the Belmont Stakes?

    ... and to Trainer Kelly Breen on getting his 1st Triple Crown race winner!

Another Shocker in the Belmont Stakes!

Ruler On Ice raced in 2nd pressing the pacesetter Shackleford over a Sloppy/Sealed track, taking the lead at the top of the stretch.

Second place finisher Stay Thirsty ran in 3rd most of the way around the 1 1/2 mile track and finished ONLY 3/4 of a length behind the winner!

The favorite, Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom finished in 6th place after having a horrific start when he was bumped into by Mucho Macho Man which caused the jockey John Velazquez to loose his left iron and almost fall of the horse. It took him into the 1st turn for him to regain control of the left iron. By this time Animal Kingdom lost all chances of winning the race.

After running in last place for the first half mile, he did put in a strong effort to get up for a 6th place finish behind Preakness Stakes winner Shackleford in 5th!

The last time the post time favorite won the "Test of Champions" was in 2005 when Afleet Alex won. Since then the winner has paid $14.40 (Jazil), $10.60 (Rags to Riches), $79.00 (Da'Tara), $25.80 (Summer Bird), $28.00 (Drosselmeyer) and Ruler On Ice - $51.50.    

The final time in the 1 1/2 Mile race was a decent 2:30.88. It was run over a Sloppy/Sealed track as were all of the dirt races on the card. 

The sloppy track did have an affect on how the race was run. All day long in the dirt races, early speed was holding. ALL day long.

The jockeys saw this just as we all saw how no one could close and catch the front speed. This resulted in the jocks not wanting to leave Shackleford on the front end by himself. And the didn't!

Ruler On Ice, Stay Thirsty, Santiva and Nehro were ALL pressing Shackleford around the track.

Shackleford led for the first 1 1/4 mile before he gave it up to the 2 runners behind him, Ruler On Ice and Stay Thirsty!

Third place finisher Brilliant Speed was the ONLY runner that was able to make up ground on the leaders as he finished 2 1/4 lengths behind the winner after having raced in 9th and 7th place for the first 1 mile of the race.

It was discovered in the days after the race that Animal Kingdom suffered a leg injury and that it would require surgery thus ending his summer racing campaign. He came out of the surgery in good shape and should be able to make it back to the races in the fall.

Watch Video Race Replay Belmont Stakes - Ruler On Ice Upsets!

Congratulations to Drosselmeyer Winner of the 2010 Belmont Stakes?

    ... and to Trainer Bill Mott on getting his 1st Triple Crown race winner!

Another Upset in the Belmont Stakes!

Drosselmeyer came from off the pace to catch the front running First Dude and Game on Dude inside the sixteenth pole to win by 3/4 of a length while holding off the fast closing Fly Down!

The favorite Ice Box finished a disappointing 9th. Later it was discovered that he displaced his palate during the race.

Fly Down and First Dude were co-second favorites.

The last time the post time favorite won the "Test of Champions" was in 2005 when Afleet Alex won. Since then the winner has paid $14.40 (Jazil), $10.60 (Rags to Riches), $79.00 (Da'Tara), $25.80 (Summer Bird) and Drosselmeyer - $28.00.    

The final time in the 1 1/2 Mile race was a slow 2:31.57. It was the slowest since 1995 when Thunder Gulich won.

Again, I think this is evident of this years' 3-year old crop of runners being a grade below what we normally see in the Triple Crown series! But it was a very competive group of runners.

Uptowncharleybrown ran a very good 5th but was disqualified to last when it was discover that he lost an 8lb. saddle weight during the race. Derby 4th place finisher Make Music for Me who finished a disappointing 10th had lost a shoe early in the race.

Drosselmeyer's victory gave trainer Bill Mott his FIRST Triple Crown series race winner. Mott has been a top trainer for many years and is truly one of the good guys in horse racing!

Owners WinStar Farms, who also owns the Derby winner Super Saver, made a BIG jockey change to Hall of Famer Mike Smith dropping Kent Desormeaux who had ridden Drosselmeyer in 6 of his 8 previous races.. It proved to be the CORRECT move!

Trainer Bob Baffert mad a similar move with Lookin at Lucky to win the Preakness Stakes!

Trainer Nick Zito again figured in the outcome of the Belmont Stakes as he trained the 2nd place finisher Fly Down as well as the favorite Ice Box. He always seems to either have the Belmont upset winner or an in-the-money runner. This year he had an in-the-money runner in ALL 3 legs of the Triple Crown series with Ice Box 2nd in the Derby, Jackson Bend 3rd in the Preakness and Fly Down in the Belmont. Not a bad year!!

Watch Video Race Replay Belmont Stakes - Drosselmeyer Upsets!

"The Other Bird" - Summer Bird Upsets Mine That Bird!

    It Was a Battle of the Birds

Another Belmont Stakes Favorite goes down to defeat!

Just as quickley as Mine That Bird took the lead in the far trun, Summer Bird came from mid-pack to take the lead at the eight pole to win going away from the tiring Dunkirk and Mine That Bird!

Jockey Calvin Borel showed his inexperience at racing on the Belmont track by making his move on the far turn to take the lead prematurely. 

The Belmont track is know as "Big Sandy" because of the big wide sweeping turns. It is almost always a kiss-of-death when a horse is asked to go wide in the turn to make his move for the lead because how much more distance he has to cover to get to the lead!

They will usually run out of gas at the eight pole as Mine That Bird did. Calvin also made a BIG mistake by not taking any mounts on the undercard. It would have given him some valuable experience at handling the "Big Sandy" turns.

Summer Bird finished a respectable 6th in the Kentucky Derby when making a big run on the far turn closing ground on the leaders. However his going 7 wide took too much out of him to finish any better.

To show how much a horse can improve with equipment changes, trainer Tim Ice put blinkers on Summer Bird after the Kentucky Derby to try to get the horse to focus more.

Summer Bird's connections decided to ship him to Belmont Park 3 weeks prior to the race to give him some extra experience working over the "Big Sandy" surface. His first workout over the surface was not a very good one as the horse seemed to be spinning his wheels on the surface. So trainer Ice added toe grabs to his hind shoes.

The result was a big win at 11-1 odds in the 3rd Leg of the Triple Crown series and an upset of the Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird!

Summer Bird became the 1st horse since 1933 to come from 4th or worst at the top of the stretch to win the Belmont Stakes! 

Summer Bird and Mine That Bird were both first crop colts of the 2004 Belmont Stakes UPSET winner Birdstone at 36-1 odds.

Summer Bird ran the Belmont Stakes in a time of 2:27 2/5. The same exact time that Birdstone beat Smarty Jones in and stopped his Triple Crown attempt!

Birdstone's will become even more popular in the breeding barn after his 2 son's Triple Crown wins!

This year's Triple Crown series was a very exciting one with the 50-1 shot Mine That Bird winning the Belmont Stakes, the 1st Filly, Rachel Alexandra, to win the Preakness Stakes in 85 years and Summer Bird's upset win in the Belmont Stakes.

To see video replays of the Triple Crown races click here. 

In our Belmont Stakes Picks we did feel that Mine That Bird would win the race but he would be in-the-money.

We felt that Chocalate Candy would be the UPSET winner because of the amount of training time in had over the Belmont surface and the fact that he was really liking the surface in his morning works.

We stated in our picks that Dunkirk and Mine That Bird were the 2 horses to beat. We just did not select Summer Bird as the likely upset winner!

Because of how strongly we felt that Dunkirk and Mine That Bird were the 2 horses to beat and that we thought there would be a upset in the race, we should have made a Trifecta wager with ALL on Top of those 2 horses. The ticket would have cost us $16 for $1 ticket!

On the entire 13 race Belmont Stakes Day racing card, our selections had 6 Winners as our Top pick with 4 other winners as our 2nd pick. Including 2 Best Bets and 1 Longshot plays.

Win payoffs were $6.80, $4.20(BB), $9.70, $3.80(BB), $9.20, $22.40(BLS) for top selections.

We hit 9 of the 13 Exata(s), 2 Trifectas and 2 Daily Double. 

Exata payoffs were $20.45, $22.80, $108.00, $87.50, $12.40, $46.60, $40.80, $90.50, and $151.00. for a TOTAL of $580.05 for $2 wagers.

The Trifecta payouts were $141.00 and $521.00 and the Daily Doubles paid $121.50 and $238.00 for a TOTAL of $1,021.50

2009 Belmont Stakes Results:.

2009 Belmont Stakes Video Replay - Summer Bird Upsets!!

Brown Dud!

    Da' Tara UpSets at 38-1

Big Brown threw in a major dud finishing last in the Belmont Stakes as the 1-5 overwhelming favorite! It was obvious that entering the last turn that Big Brown did not have much left in the tank and jockey Kent Desormeaux pulled him up, prematurely I think, and thus finished last.

Da' Tara won in wire-to-wire fashion which is bascially impossible to do in the 1 1/2 Mile Belmont Stakes. No one really pressed Da' Tara on the front end ond as the ONLY Early Speed horse in the race he was able to steal the race winning easily by 5 1/4 lengths over Denis of Cork who wa sthe 2nd betting favorite  in the race.

Trained by the King of Triple Crown spoiler, Nick Zito who also had 3rd place finisher Anak Nakal, Da' Tara became his trainer's 2nd Triple Crown Upsetter in 5 years. In 2004 he stopped Smarty Jones when Birdstone won at big odds.

When Casino Drive scratched out of the race it left Da' Tara as the ONLY Early Speed horse in the field. Da' Tara would not have won the Belmont Stakes if Casino Drive would have raced because he would have pressed Da' Tara which would have forced him to run harder longer. When Big Brown dropped out, Casino Ride would have still been there with Da' Tara!

The Triple Crown is one of the most difficult feats to accomplish in ALL of sports!

Big Brown became the 7th, since 1979, Odds-on Favorite to lose the Belmont Stakes! 

For the 7th time in the past 12 years a Triple Crown attempt has failed! Smarty Jones (2004), Funny Cide (2003), War Emblem (2002), Charismatic (1999), Real Quiet (1998), Silver Charm (1997) and now Big Brown (2008).

Will we ever see another Triple Crown Winner?

It has now been 31 years since we had one!

With the Dead-Heat for 3rd place, we got the 3 Longest odds horses in the Top 4 finishers along with the 2nd post time favorite.

Denis of Cork (7-1) ran well to finish 2nd, 2 1/2 lengths in front of the (2) 3rd place runners Ready's Echo (28-1) and Anak Nakal (34-1). 

In our Belmont Stakes Picks we did feel that Big Brown would win the race. However, we also told our readers that if he were to get beat, it would no doubt be one of Nick Zito's runners. (Da' Tara or Anak Nakal)!

We felt that the edge would go to Anak Nakal because of his running style and that Early Speed does not last in the 1 1/2 Mile distance of the Belmont Stake.

When Casino Drive scratched out of the race, we added Da' Tara to our Trifecta and Superfecta selections.

Anak Nakal was our Longshot Pick to upset Big Brown if he were to lose.

Well he did lose but we had the wrong Zito horse on Top. Anak Nakal did pay $7.60 to Show so we did make a little money on our across-the-board wager.

What we should have done on a Trifecta ticket was to play both of Zito's horses on Top and Bottom and ALL in the Middle. It would have cost us $14 for a $1 ticket. The payoff to us would have been $1,851.50.

We did have ALL 4 of the 1-2-3-4 finishers in our Trifecta and Superfecta tickets. We just did not use the Early Speed horse on Top of them.

Rags to Riches Makes History

Another unbelievable and exciting finish  in the 3rd leg of the Triple Crown series!

It was another hard fought battle down the stretch to the wire with the Filly holding off Curlin at the wire by a head in another photo finish.

It almost looked like an exact repeate of the Street Sense - Curlin battle in the Preakness when Curlin came back at the wire to nose out Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense!

After stumbling out of the gate the filly was able to regain her balance and get back into stride without out loosing too much ground to the field. 

Rags to Riches became ONLY the 3rd Filly to win the Belmont Stakes in 139 years! The last time was in 1905 .. 102 years ago!

She was running wide the entire race which made the 1  1/2 Mile race much longer. Curlin saved ground by taking the inside route to the stretch as he was also conceeding a 5 pound weight advantage to Rags to Riches.

The first Mile of the race was run in one of the slowest in Belmont Stakes history.  No one wanted the lead (i guess they read the winning Belmont Profile)  so our longshot special C P West assumed it with Slew's Tizzy in 2nd and Hard Spun in 3rd. They ran very slow getting the first 1/4 in :24.74 and  the 1/2 mile in an unbelievable :50.14. They continued the slow pace getting 6F in 1:15.32.

They completed the first mile in 1;15.32 and then Curlin and Rags to Riches kicked in to gain the lead in the stretch and finished the last 1/2 mile very fast. The final time of 2.28.74 was very respectable.

Rags to Riches ran her final 1/4 mile in a very quick :23 4/5 and got the last 1/2 mile in a fast :47 4/5!

This slowly run race reminded me of this year's Blugrass Stakes where no one wanted the lead and they too ran very slow with everyone steaming home down the lane and there was a 5 horse photo at the wire.

The only difference in the Belmont Stakes was that ONLY 2 horses had anything left for the stretch run. That's the difference in running 1 1/8 mile vs. 1  1/2 mile.

For the 2nd consecutive year we have a different winner in each of the Triple Crown races. But ALL 3 of them were very exciting with Street Sense coming from next to last the pass the field and catch front running Hard Spun to win the Kentucky Derby.

Then in the Preakness we had the battle between Street Sense and Curlin at the wire with Curlin getting the win and end our hope for a Triple Crown this year. Then the tables got reversed on him at the wire with the Filly Rags to Riches winning by a neck!

Not to mention Todd Pletcher finally getting his 1st Triple Crown series winner. He tried 28 times previously with his top Colts with NO victories  ...   then when he had no other runners to enter he went with the filly and she got him to the winners circle!

The down side to this year's Triple Crown races was that the payoff were very low compared to the averages!

Unfortunately the Kentucky Derby 1-2-3 runners were 3 of the 4 post time favorites. In the Preakness the 1-2-3 finishers were the 3 top favorites and then in the Belmont 1-2-3-4 horses were the 4 favorites ...

In our picks we had Curlin as our top selection with Rags to Riches and C P West as our runner up choices. However, our wagering strategy enabled us to cash in on the Exacta, Trifecta and Superfecta bets.

The $2 payoffs were $25.20, $131.50 and $242.50 respectably.

Congratulations to Jazil

the 2006 Belmont Stakes Winner

Jazil overpowered and prevailed in the "Test of Champions" as he came from dead last to win by 1 1/4 lengths in front of BlueGrass Cat!


The Maiden only winner, proved much the best in the 1 1/2 Mile Belmont Stakes and his jockey Jara did a nice job of riding him and getting through traffic to take on Bluegrass Cat at the top of the stretch.
 
The grounds crew had the track setup for speed all day  and that proved beneficial to Jazil. On paper this race looked like a paceless match with no real speed horses for Jazil to close into. However the speed enhanced track resulted in faster early fractions than it looked like we would get and thus Jazil was able to close on the leaders and still have more than enough ground remaining to be able to take over the lead.

Todd Pletcher's 2 horses finished 2nd and 3rd followed by Steppenwolfer and the European Oh So Awesome.

The $2 Exacta Paid $92, the $1 Trifecta $218, the $1 Superfecta $1,085 and the $1 Million guaranteed Pick4 paid $835 for $1 ticket.

Unfortunately when there is NO big favorite in the race, the wagering dollars gets spread evenly across the field which results in lower exoctic payoffs.

The odds on the 1st 4 finishers were 6.20, 4.90, 6.00 and 4.80.

The favorite was Bob and John at 4.70 -1. So you can see that the odds were very close to the favorite's.

Oh well, it was still a great race to watch and maybe next year we will have the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner in the race.

We had the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th place finishers but NOT Jazil.

Our top picks were Sunriver and European Oh So Awesome. Sunriver ran a perfect race to be in position to go for the lead heading into the last turn but did not have any closing kick. He got to within 1 3/4 lengths of the leader but could not go on.

Oh So Awesome had a bad start after hesitating at the gate he then lunged in the air. That put him next to last and was last after a mile. He started to close leaving the backstretch and got into contention at the top of the stretch but had used up too much energy trying to make up for the bad start.

Let's see how the Winning Profile held up this year.

Still only 1 wire-to-wire winner in the past 22 years! (so we knew that Bob and John wouldn't be around after going for the lead when the gates opened).

It is now 6 of the last 8 Belmont winners did not race in the Preakness.

It is now 11 of the last 16 Belmont winners raced in the Kentucky Derby.

In the past 21 years only 5 favorites have won.

Over the past 11 years, 11 different trainers have won the race!

Jazil had NOT earned a triple digit Byer speed rating  which is usually a mandate if you want to win the Belmont Stakes.

Again, his trainer knew he had to have Jazil running earlier than usual if he were to have any chance at winning. His jockey had him moving up at the end of the back stretch and in position to take the lead in the final turn!

Congratulations to them!

Jazil will now be preparing for the Travers which is always a very good race with a lot of talented horses!

For the numbers players out there this year for the Triple Crown series, the No. 8 was HOT!

In the Derby, #8 Barbaro won, in the Preakness #8 Bernardini won and in the Belmont, #8 Jazil was the winner. How much easier could get??

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Review of My 2005 Belmont Stakes Picks

Well Afleet Alex destroyed the field just like we predicited.

His odds of 6-5 were actually much highier than they should have been. When you can more than double your money on a certain LOCK like Alex, you have got to load up!

The $4.30 that he paid was a big time gift!

I explained in my picks and analysis that Afleet Alex would only pay $3.00 to win and $2.10 to Place and Show. So when he actually paid $4.30, $3.60 and $3.00 across the board, it was easy money!

I explained how Afleet Alex was in a class ALL to himself in this week field. I also explained why we had a weak 3-year old crop this year in the Triple Crown series.

We had the Exacta dead cold with Alex and the ONLY horse that ran in the Derby, skipped the Preakness and now shows up in the Belmont Stakes. Afleet Alex and Andromeda's Hero paid $44 for the Exacta. If you played a $20 Exacta you got back $440 for a profit of $420.

I had also had the Pick 4 in races 8, 9, 10 and 11 which paid $490 and the Pick 3 in races 9, 10 and 11 which paid $314.50.

If you boxed my Pick 4 selections in the 10th race, you would have hit the Exacta for $506, Trifecta for $1,993 and the Superfecta for $41,092 ...

That is correct, if you boxed the 4 horses that I selected to use in the Pick 4 you would have cashed in on either $21,795 for $1 wager or $43,591 for $2 wagers ...

I will be handicapping the Breeders Cup races scheduled for October 29th and they will be held at Belmont Park.

Breeders Cup day is the BEST day in horse racing and there are always big payouts in the exotic wagers.

Please come back for my picks and wagering strategy as I will be cashing in on a lot of wagers!