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HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS JUNE 16, 2006 by Dick Powell How fast was Belmont's main track last Saturday for the 138th renewal of the Belmont S. (G1)? I say if it weren’t for the gale-force winds blowing directly into the horses' faces down the backstretch, we would have seen numerous track records set. Last week in New York saw rain throughout the week. After the sun dried the track out some on Friday, more rain hit overnight. In anticipation, the track was sealed hard after the last race on Friday so the added rain just ran off and never sank into it. On Saturday, the sun came out but a wind of at least 30 mph was blowing hard. The main track had dried out to the point where the maintenance crew had to water the track throughout the day. Any thoughts from earlier in the week that this year's Belmont would be run on a wet track quickly evaporated. With the wind blowing as hard as it was, you would think that early speed would suffer since the front runners would be doing all the work going into the wind. However, as the day went on, speed held up despite some amazingly fast early fractions. In the 3RD race, SAFSOOF (Gilded Time) pressed the pace of Marco's Tale (Tale of the Cat) and won in the fast time of 1:22.02 for trainer Saeed bin Suroor. In the next race, PRECISE ACTION (Precise End) rallied wide on the turn to beat first-level New York-bred allowance foes in 1:22.70 for the same seven-furlong distance. Next up was the 5TH race, an optional claimer/first-level allowance event, and AFRASHAD (Smoke Glacken) returned off a 696-day layoff to win easily for Suroor in 1:08.38. His first quarter of :21.86 into the gale was incredible and once he made it halfway around the turn and got the wind at his back he cruised home. Older sprinters were up next in the True North H. (G2). ANEW (Awesome Again) has been a new horse since Steve Asmussen ignored his pedigree and shortened him up to sprint races this winter. His last three BRIS Speed figures were as competitive as anyone and, if you could overlook the fact that he ran for a $25,000 price tag three races prior to the True North, he looked to be about as fast as anyone in here. Alan Garcia developed a reputation over the winter in New York about being able to break horses running, and he broke Anew so fast from his outside post that he was able to make the lead and get to the rail well before the turn. The gelding's first quarter into the wind was :22.12, and Garcia had a ton of horse under him. He hit the half in :44.46 and threw in a :23.64 last quarter for a final time of 1:08.10. After the Just a Game H. (G2) on the yielding turf, when GORELLA (Fr) (Grape Tree Road [GB]) made up an impossible amount of ground in the last furlong to win by a neck, SONGSTER (Songandaprayer) came back to win the Woody Stephens Breeders' Cup S. (G2) going the seven furlongs in 1:21.45. In the Acorn S. (G1), BUSHFIRE (Louis Quatorze) dueled for the lead down the backside with a first half in :45 into the headwind. She was passed by Hello Liberty (Forest Camp) in deep stretch but came back to win by a neck under Alex Solis. Even with the wind at her back, she required :26.46 for her last quarter, which shows how much her first half took out of her. Going into the 11TH, the Belmont, it was pretty apparent that speed was doing well even though it was counter-intuitive. The Belmont was the only two-turn event of the day and, with the wind in their faces in the long run down the backside, it was hard to tell if speed would continue to do as well as it was doing in the earlier sprint races. When the betting began, the public was just as puzzled, as Steppenwolfer (Aptitude) was the early lukewarm favorite at 9-2. Amazingly, JAZIL (Seeking the Gold) was 5-1. He was not picked by many public handicappers, was not the proverbial "wiseguy" horse, was up against a pronounced bias that seemed to favor speed and the inside paths, and was being overbet. The Shadwell Stable colorbearer was still eligible for non-winners of a race other than and was ridden by 18-year-old Fernando Jara. He drifted up to 6-1 at post time as Bob and John (Seeking the Gold) wound up the tepid 47-10 betting favorite. To show how torn the public was, Steppenwolfer went off at 48-10, Bluegrass Cat (Storm Cat) 49-10 with Sunriver (Saint Ballado) at 60-10 and Jazil at 62-10. We expected four horses to take most of the money, but the betting public rightly made Jazil the fifth member of that group. As the gate opened, High Finance (Talk Is Money) and Double Galore (Grand Slam) did not break alertly, and despite their one-dimensional front-running styles, their riders did not challenge for the lead. Garrett Gomez broke Bob and John beautifully, but it probably cost him whatever chance he had since he was now on a lead nobody wanted instead of stalking the two expected pacesetters. Gomez kept Bob and John extremely wide going into the clubhouse turn hoping that someone would want the lead to his inside, but there were no takers. Bluegrass Cat took the worst of it, as he wound up five-wide on the first turn. Bob and John had the lead that he didn’t want and as soon as he had it High Finance began to press him on the inside and Deputy Glitters (Deputy Commander) pressed on the outside. The mile was run in 1:37.53, and considering that the second half of it was run into the headwind which had not died down any by Belmont post time, it was way too fast. Going into the far turn, others started to gear up as Gomez asked Bob and John to maintain the lead. Bluegrass Cat was still wide but coming on, and Steppenwolfer had to overcome traffic on the far turn but was making his presence felt. Jara had Jazil behind the pack in last place for the first half-mile and then began to pick off horses while still saving ground. He threaded his way between horses on the turn and emerged at the top of the stretch as the main danger outside of Bluegrass Cat as Bob and John began to fade. Jazil had all the momentum and was the beneficiary of a dream trip as he pulled Jara to the quarter pole. From there it was a gallop to the wire as Bluegrass Cat battled on gamely but could not catch Jazil, who drew off gradually to win by 1 1/4 lengths. Bluegrass Cat was second, while fellow Todd Pletcher charge Sunriver finished a wide third. Trained to the minute by Kiaran McLaughlin, Jazil showed that his sudden late burst in the Wood Memorial (G1) was no fluke. His one-dimensional closing running style usually doesn't work in the Belmont, but this year all bets were off. We had a Kentucky Derby (G1) winner score off a five-week break, a Preakness S. (G1) victor win in his two-turn debut, and a Belmont winner with a deep-closer running style that was only able to break his maiden by a head at Aqueduct in December.
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