By Matt Hampton
This year, local racing fans will have a rooting interest from their own backyards, as trainer Kiaran McLaughlin will enter Charitable Man into the Belmont field. McLaughlin said he loves making the Belmont his home track, and thinks there’s
no better place to board and race thoroughbreds.
“It”s a great facility, one of the best in the world,” McLaughlin said. “The set ups are very nice barns, along with a mile and a half race track. It’s a great luxury to be here at Belmont Park.”
McLaughlin said as a Garden City resident, Belmont Park is almost like his backyard, and he treats it that way. He and his horses walk and run the multiple courses at Belmont day-in and day-out. For him, Triple Crown possibility or no, the Belmont Stakes day is always a highlight.
“The Triple Crown is a big deal, obviously, all eyes of the world are on those three races,” McLaughlin said. “You want to have the biggest crowd you can have – and less people come out [when there is not a Triple Crown possibility] because most people want to say there were on hand when such-and-such a horse won the Triple Crown, but for someone like me who’s here everyday, it’s the same nice great Belmont Park that I come to every day.”
Charitable Man is a horse McLaughlin has supreme confidence in on Belmont’s 1 1/2 mile track. The horse was sired by Belmont winner Lemon Drop Kid, and has not lost in two tries at Belmont Park.
“His father won the Belmont, so we feel like he’ll get that mile and a half,” McLaughlin said, pointing out that other horses in the Belmont field have been worked harder and seen less rest. “A horse like Rachel Alexandra has been run two times in 37 days. We feel like we have a fresh horse.”
Charitable Man was seen last year as an early favorite to be a Triple Crown possibility, McLaughlin said, but an injury forced his training regimen to be cut short. The horse ended up settling for a less prestigious but still notable victory at the Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park last month.
It’s an uncertain field all the jockey Calvin Borel. Borel could become the first man to take a “Jockey's Triple Crown” on different horses.
“I am excited to come to New York and ride Mine That Bird in the Belmont Stakes,” Borel said.
Mine That Bird will attempt to be the first horse in 14 years to win the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes. The last horse to do so was Thunder Gulch in 1995.
Other horses likely to run include Brave Victory, Dunkirk, Flying Private, Luv Gov, Miner’s Escape, Mr. Hot Stuff, Nowhere To Hide and Summer Bird. With a week to go before the race, Mine That Bird, a 50-to-1 longshot at the Kentucky Derby, was the favorite to end up in the Winner's Circle. Oddsmakers post the lines as they move every day, and McLaughlin said he expected to see his horse near the top of the list when it came time for the Belmont Stakes to post – but being a winner isn’t everything. Trainers also look at every race as an opportunity to learn something, and to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
“The horses don’t necessarily have to win for it to be a good day,” McLaughlin said. “We just hope it’s a good day and a good crowd, because you never know what’s going to happen when those gates open.”
The Belmont
Stakes
Saturday, June 7. Parking fields open at 8:15 a.m.; admission gates at 8:30 a.m.; first-race post is 11:35 a.m. The Belmont Stakes (race 11) post time is 6:27 p.m.
Belmont Park, Elmont. For more information, call (718) 641-4700 ext.732 or
800-814-7846 or visit www.belmontstakes.com.
