53.0°,
Light Drizzle Fog And they’re off at Belmont
Westside Corral wins opening race
Jockey Jose Lezcano not only avoided potential disaster in the first race of 2011 at Belmont Park last Friday, he rode Westside Corral to a come-from-behind victory in the nine-horse, one-mile turf event that kicked off the 56-day spring/summer meet.
Lezcano momentarily lost balance around the three-eighths pole when Westside Corral clipped heels and stumbled. Both rider and horse regained stride quickly, however, swung four-wide into the stretch and closed on frontrunners Ground Force, N.P. Cat and Seattle Mission.
“Everything happened so fast,” Lezcano said. “We started to move and then he stumbled. I never lost the irons and he just kept going. He closed strong in his previous race and I knew he could do it again.”
With a sixteenth of a mile to go, Westside Corral edged clear under a hand ride and crossed the line in 1:40.16. He paid $5.80 to win. Power Dreams was a fast-closing second and Seattle Mission, the favorite, held on for third. The trifecta returned $127 for a $2 investment.
The biggest purse offered before the opening day crowd of 5,979 came in Race 4, the $66,000 Irish Linnet overnight stakes for New York-bred fillies and mares. This was also a one-mile race, and a late runner picked up the pieces in the lane to get to the winner’s circle. Chorus Music, with Alex Solis aboard, roared down the stretch and blew the field away by more than five lengths in 1:38.71. The betting favorite in her first start in five months, Chorus Music paid $6.60 to win.
“It’s nice to win anywhere, but Belmont has always been one of my favorite tracks in the world,” Solis said. “I had a lot of horse under me, and the race set up perfectly.”
Caixa Electronica was an upset winner in the first graded stakes race of the meet, taking the 83rd running of the $100,000 Westchester last Saturday in 1:34.26 over a fast main track with Cornelio Velasquez up.
Of course, the biggest of 37 stakes races during Belmont’s spring/summer meet, which runs through July 17, will be the 143rd running of the $1 million Belmont Stakes. The third and final leg of thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown will take place Saturday, June 11.
