Belmont Stakes 2005

Belmont Stakes Results

Afleet Alex Dominates 137th Belmont Stakes

Saturday, June 11, 2005

By Bruno Zalubil

Afleet Alex wrote his name into the history books after passing eight horses on the final turn and exploding to the front to win the 137th Running of the Belmont Stakes (Gr. 1) in front of 62,274 fans on Saturday at Belmont Park.

"I don't want to hear any more criticism about my horse," said jockey Jeremy Rose. "He's one of the best we've see in a long time."

Afleet Alex, who is owned by Cash is King LLC, won the 1½-mile "Test of the Champion" by seven lengths in 2:28 3/5 over a fast track to become the 18th Thoroughbred to win the Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

Andromeda's Hero, under Rafael Bejarano, finished second. Maiden Nolan's Cat, under Norberto Arroyo, Jr., was third.

                           

Pinpoint went to the lead and set the early fractions at :24 2/5, :48 3/5 and 1:12 4/5, with A. P. Arrow and Southern Africa coasting off his flank. Afleet Alex was content to settle back in ninth position in the 11-horse field and save ground about six lengths back for the first half of the race. The field bunched into three rows of three as it entered the turn for home. Afleet Alex was in the back row, stuck on the rail. Mike Smith asked Giacomo, the winner of the Kentucky Derby, to make his move to the outside of the pack, and, for a moment, it appeared that it would lead to victory.

Afleet Alex, however, was about to be freed from traffic. Chekhov and Reverberate drifted out slightly on the turn, allowing Afleet Alex room to advance between Watchmon and Indy Storm, then catch Giacomo and find open track in the middle of the stretch.

Then, Afleet Alex took off.

"He just exploded," said winning trainer Tim Ritchey.

The colt, who stumbled at the top of the stretch before rallying to win the Preakness Stakes, finished the grueling Belmont Stakes in :24 2/5, the fastest final quarter mile since Art and Letters in 1969.

"I had the best horse," Rose said. "The only thing that could get him beat was me, so I stayed out of his way."

Afleet Alex - a Florida-bred 3-year-old son of Northern Afleet, out of Maggy Hawk (Hawkster) - paid $4.30 as the favorite.

"We expected this kind of performance today," Ritchey said. "All I kept saying was: 'Be patient, be patient, be patient, wait, wait, wait.' That was the plan. With these big, wide turns you have to save all the ground you can. Jeremy Rose has now ridden three Triple Crown races like a Hall of Famer."

The 137th Belmont Stakes was billed as the rematch between Derby winner Giacomo and Preakness winner Afleet Alex, and nine other horses. It was the 13th such rematch since 1956 and the updated tally has the Preakness winners up, 5-3.

Trainer Nick Zito, who saddled seven different horses for a total of 11 starters in the three Triple Crown races, finished second with Andromeda's Hero, fourth with Indy Storm and last with Pinpoint.

"It's an honor to be second to this great horse," said Zito, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Aug. 8, 2005. "Without him in this race, we win the Belmont Stakes. (Andromeda's Hero) just ran great. All of my jockeys did what they were supposed to do. Pinpoint may not be ready for these horses yet, Indy Storm ran great and Andromeda's Hero ran unbelievable."

Bejarano was happy with the response he got from Andromeda's Hero. "My horse broke really good this time," he said, "so, I stayed comfortable in good position, trying to stay close to Afleet Alex. When he moved at the three-eighths pole, I followed him, and when I asked my horse at the quarter pole, my horse started running strong. But Afleet Alex just ran away."

Nolan's Cat, whom some believed sullied the Triple Crown by running as a maiden, surprised many with a solid stretch run and his third-place finish.

"If this horse didn't have some unfortunate events along the way, I think he would have been a contender throughout the entire Triple Crown," said trainer Dale Romans about Nolan's Cat, who is now 0-3-2 from six starts. "I was real pleased with the way he ran. He just had some nagging injuries as a 2-year-old and got caught up in quarantine early this year. I couldn't give him enough seasoning. I was pleased with his race, and happy the public showed him respect. We didn't have the pace that we had last year in this race. But he still ran good into a slower pace. He's the best maiden in the country."

Arroyo, Jr., was impressed with Nolan's Cat: "I had to take him wide at the top of the stretch," he said. "He really liked the distance. I had confidence in him. I knew there would be a lot of horses stopping going a mile and a half. I just let him relax the first part and started moving up little by little."

Giacomo finished seventh under Mike Smith in his attempt to become the 12th horse to win the Derby and Belmont Stakes. Smith surmised that Giacomo displaced his palate during the race.

"Down the backstretch, I could hear him make a loud, roaring noise," Smith said. "I knew he had (displaced his palate). So, I got him to the outside and dropped his head - a lot of times that will help get it back. But he never did. At the quarter-pole, he let out another one. Galloping out was the same. When a horse is doing that, he is not breathing right. I won't take anything away from Afleet Alex. He ran great today."

Added trainer John Shirreffs about his Giacomo: "Mike (Smith) said the horse started to make a lot of noise, and started displacing (his upper palate). He looks good now. The Triple Crown has been great to us. (Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Moss), my wife and I and for everyone involved, we've all enjoyed it. We've had a wonderful time with Giacomo. Every stop we've made, everyone has been great to us. He's going to get a break now."

In the immediate afterglow of the Belmont Stakes, on the track where 18 horses failed to complete the Triple Crown, including Smarty Jones last year and Funny Cide the year before, Rose felt remorse for what he felt could have been.

"He should be a Triple Crown winner, but I messed up or whatever," Rose told a live national television audience on NBC as he galloped back to the Winner's Circle. "I say I messed up because I had the best horse. You can't blame Tim (Ritchey) and you can't blame Afleet Alex. So, if you have to blame someone, blame me."

Afleet Alex finished third in the Kentucky Derby on May 7. He stumbled in the Preakness Stakes yet still pulled away to an impressive 4¾-length victory on May 21.

After the Belmont Stakes, Afleet Alex is now 8-2-1 from 12 starts with earnings of $2,765,800. He is now a three-time Grade 1 winner, with the Hopeful as a juvenile and the Preakness and Belmont as a 3-year-old on his resume.

            Belmont Stakes Post-Race Press Conference
 

JEN REEVES: We did it again.
THE MODERATOR: I think we're ready to start here.
THE MODERATOR: Could you introduce the whole group?
JOSEPH LERRO: Joel Lerro, Bob Brittingham, Jen Reeves, Joe Judge. The master man, Chuck Zacney.
THE MODERATOR: Chuck, what's it feel like to win the Belmont?
CHUCK ZACNEY: Unbelievable. Once again, coming in here, getting two out of three of the Triple Crown legs, fantastic, I guess as I watched the race and I saw another terrific ride by Jeremy; and you know, we're thrilled to death to be here. I've got to give all the credit to Tim. I mean, from day one, he took this horse, took it under his wings, had the horse ready and anybody who questioned whether or not this horse could go a mile and a half, he proved it rather convincingly today.
JOSEPH LERRO: Hey, hey, hey.
THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Jeremy Rose.
Jeremy, could we get your reaction to winning the Belmont Stakes?
JEREMY ROSE: Pretty much ran away from the field. He exploded the quarter pole and that was the game, that was it.
THE MODERATOR: Was it Alex's lemonade?
JEREMY ROSE: It was a lot of things, I think.

Q. You talked about patience before the race. It was, obviously.
JEREMY ROSE: I watched this race a couple of years down, seemed like the most patient rides are the ones that win. I had that going into the game and the best horse, that's really what makes it. It's the horse.

Q. Do you feel a little vindicated, especially after some of the things that might have been said after the Derby?
JEREMY ROSE: I still feel responsible for that, whether he should be a Triple Crown horse. Obviously, he's the best three year old in the country. He should have won.

Q. Chuck, talk about your involvement now in buying more horses. Is the group staying together and buying more horses with the winnings you've had so far?
CHUCK ZACNEY: Absolutely. We've basically been doing that from the beginning. We had a successful year last year. Every dollar we reinvested in the horses. We're doing the same this year. Like I said, we want to be in this game for the next 10, 20 years.

Q. Better stock, more expensive.
CHUCK ZACNEY: Yeah, we dug deep in our pockets this year. I guess we probably spent in claiming new horses last year close to a million dollars. This year alone, I believe we spent about 700,000. It's still early. Like I said, we really haven't made a whole lot of money. We haven't put a whole lot in our pockets. We're looking to load Tim up with some really nice horses this year. We've got some very nice claiming horses we got last year. We're ready for bear.

Q. The way the race played out, did you know he was going to explode the way he did?
JEREMY ROSE: I pretty much expected it the way he went around the first mile quarter. Extremely relaxed, which is what we were hoping he would do, relatively slow pace anyway. The top of the lane, I figure, you know, typical Alex. We'd be fine. When I turned for home, he gave me that explosive kick he always does.

Q. How did you decide when to make the move?
JEREMY ROSE: To be honest, I was going to wait as long as I absolutely had to. The horse in front of me started stopping. We were picking him up on Alex's cruise control speed. I felt we'll run the last quarter 23, 24.

Q. Could you speak a little bit about when he came up to Saratoga, the Sanford, and a two year old and you knew he was good. Did you know he was this good?
JEREMY ROSE: I wasn't sure. It's hard to make that kind of assumption that young of an age. I knew he was going to be a very good horse. Whether he would be a Triple Crown horse and probably should have won the Triple Crown, I didn't know that. But I knew he was going to be a great horse and a very good horse.

Q. When you reviewed the Derby, you said you had to alter a number of times. Did you come up with anything that you could have done differently?
JEREMY ROSE: One of things I would have like to have done, stay left handed down the lane instead of switching back right hand. I didn't have anything left in my arsenal. I had to go back to the right hand. May have cost me the win, but, you know, that's what I did.

Q. Do you say anything to Alex when you crossed the finish line? Did you get a chance?
JEREMY ROSE: Oh, yeah, told him, he's the Man. He is. He's a beast. He's a freak of nature. He's made out of steel. He came back just as good as he went in. Amazing animal.

Q. You seemed to have a grin on your face going in the truck. What was your state of mind?
JEREMY ROSE: Having fun. The fans were going nuts over him, ears were pricked. You could tell the difference who the fans loved. As soon as we went to jog off camera, they went nuts. It's nice to see him get that kind of love around here. Anywhere he goes, he seems to be the focal point of the race.

Q. Was this race today as easy as the Preakness was hard with the near fall?
JEREMY ROSE: To be honest, this was a very uneventful race, it was beautiful, perfect trip. Alex put me in the garden spot the whole way around. Save around the first turn, no clipping of the heals to make it exciting for you guys. I like it that way.
THE MODERATOR: We have a question from upstairs for Chuck.

Q. Do you feel cheated at all? No?
TIM RITCHEY: Chuck just left.
THE MODERATOR: Tim, do you feel cheated at all you didn't win the Derby?
TIM RITCHEY: No. He ran a great race in the Derby. Jeremy rode a great race. It wasn't meant to be. Like I said, if one told us in the beginning of March we were going to win two legs of the Triple Crown, he would have would have been ecstatic.

Q. A lot of people call in question your training methods. You think this vindicated them?
JEREMY ROSE: Yes.

Q. The way you brought this horse along the last few years have been more and more accustomed to few starts. You were almost a throw back and you put a tremendous foundation in this horse as a two year old. Can you talk a little bit about why you did that and, again, when you came to Saratoga, what made you think that you could jump up to that level when you did?
TIM RITCHEY: Well, he showed me a lot. We won the Sanford and broke that state's record, sat for 34 years; in the Hopeful he showed greatness. He looked like he hopelessly beaten, refocused, came back in. I thought there was no way he could win the race. He got up with one. That showed me he was a special horse. That it was a matter of coming up with a plan. We went to the Champagne. He didn't have the best of trips there. The Breeder's Cup was not a good trip at all. He still ran great race after the two year old season. I just sat down and tried to figure out a plan to get this horse through all the preps and the three Triple Crown races, kind of super healthy, super happy, as fit as he could possibly be because of the rigors of all four or five races that he had to go through. And I think the plan worked pretty well.

Q. Is it something you always believed in to put a bottom like that?
TIM RITCHEY: Absolutely. I think it's an absolute necessity. I think you don't have that kind of bottom in a horse, you don't get through all great races in.

Q. (Inaudible.)
TIM RITCHEY: I thought Jeremy rode tremendously. He saved ground like we discussed early in the race. He dropped in. He was sitting perfect. The whole field wasn't -- one horse was back a little ways, the rest of the field maybe eight, nine lengths, separating the whole field. I kept saying to myself, patience and Jeremy was patient as could be. You could tell the horse just started to pick up horses on his own. Jeremy wasn't even riding him. When he kind up went outside of Giacomo, Jeremy asked him a little bit and he accelerated and went with authority.

Q. How do you feel these Triple Crown experiences with the two victories is going to affect your career?
JEREMY ROSE: I don't know. We'll see how it goes. Either way. Regardless what I do from this point on, I got a couple of them. That's nice.

Q. Jeremy, after all the kind of fanfare and media blitz that goes with the Triple Crown, are you looking forward to kicking back a bit?
JEREMY ROSE: It doesn't bother me either way. People want to talk to me, I'll talk to them. If not, I'm not going to cry about it.

Q. Moving ahead a little bit, between now and the Travers, you pretty much going to rest him?
TIM RITCHEY: He'll relax a little bit. For him, relaxed is just galloping a mile and a half. He's still going to train because you can't just stop with a horse that's this fit. It's not healthy for him. He will probably walk three days instead of his normal two. He just ran a mile and a half, we'll go over everything, make sure everything is fine. He'll start to jog a lot. Like I said, he'll do days here and there. Nothing as strenuous as what he did. We will just kind of let him down, let him put on a little bit of weight, let him relax and grow up a little bit, because he's a May foal. He's behind the eight ball. Younger than most of the horses he's been running with. Then we'll start to crank him up for the Haskell and the Travers.

Q. What does it say about Alex, he had so much left?
TIM RITCHEY: Says he's run as far as they make races.
THE MODERATOR: How much more special was this with the lemonade stand and the biscotti, maybe one of the owners?
JOSEPH LERRO: Well, as a group, we feel obligated to giving a lot back, and that's means a lot to us to do that. We're so lucky to have this and have this special horse and in order to appreciate, you have to give something back. That's what it means.

THE MODERATOR: Is that why you had such a grin on your face? You knew you had the angels on your side?
JEREMY ROSE: That's always helpful, especially in these races. You need luck on your side; kept us up on the Preakness and gave us a clean trip on this one.
TIM RITCHEY: My thoughts were, the fact there were over 30 lemonade stands at different race tracks, a thousand throughout the nation, no matter what happened in the race, all America was a winner because of the fact they supported something that is so meaningful. I'm very grateful for that and pleased that it happened.

Q. Are you going back to Delaware Park?
TIM RITCHEY: Am I going back there?

Q. Yes.
TIM RITCHEY: That's where I live.

Q. To train and all that and do, what you do?
TIM RITCHEY: Yes, this horse will probably either stay here or go to Monmouth Park.
THE MODERATOR: We have a question upstairs, could you talk about the versatility of this horse and the different distances he's won on?
TIM RITCHEY: You've got a horse that ran first time out he was two fifths off the track record and five and a half furlongs, came back and did the exact same thing on a muddy racetrack. Broke a 34 year old state's record within three quarters, came back later in the Mountain Valley. He won by a record eight lengths in the Arkansas Derby. Won in the very eventful Preakness where he still ran one of the fastest times they've had in the last six or seven years, finished today going a mile and a half, the last quarter 24 and change, and I am going to run him on the turf somewhere and I think he'll excel on the turf. You've got a horse that can do just about anything.

Q. You think you could have won the Preakness like you did today without that incident?
JEREMY ROSE: Definitely. It was one of those things that happened. Granted, everything worked out the way it did. It made him look great and his athleticism. It put him on a different level than most sources. Neither of us got hurt. It was all right to do.

Q. For the partners: Last year the public got attached to Smarty Jones and he was retired rather abruptly. Could you give your thoughts on that?
TIM RITCHEY: This horse is going to run as a four year old, period, end of story.

Q. Can the partners address that as well?
ROBERT BRITTINGHAM: Whatever Tim says goes.
JOSEPH LERRO: Everybody buy more lemonade.

Q. Can you name any one moment from this Triple Crown series that's going to stand out to you as your favorite or the one thing you really remember the most?
JEREMY ROSE: Actually, the one thing I remember the most had nothing to do with racing. ESPN did the little thing on little Alex Scott that put everything in perspective on Triple Crown races. Doesn't matter what happens. The worse happens, something get fired. Either way my life nearly wasn't as tough as hers was. It pretty much put everything in perspective.

Q. How important was Alex's demeanor and composure in handing, the detention barn and fan reaction.
TIM RITCHEY: I felt that whenever they said horses had to go to the detention barn instead of saying in their stall, I thought I had an advantage right there. This horse is easygoing, if anybody saw the ESPN thing, where he held a baseball glove in his mouth, a baseball in his mouth. He's so cool, he's just so relaxed. Nothing ever upsets this horse. I knew the detention barn certainly wouldn't. It may affect some other horses. I think we would have stood him there in a the hotdog stand five or six hours stand taken it out and he would have run well.

Q. Do you think will be good to develop innovative marketing campaign, attract new fans?
TIM RITCHEY: I think that it should happen. Hopefully we've been a model and hopefully everybody else will find some kind of a really meaningful charity and all the little things on the side of jockey's pants, I think that money should go to any charity they choose. If they need to have five or $10,000 that much, they're in wrong business and not doing what they should be in the Triple Crown races. That's my feeling.

Q. You were pretty emphatic when I asked you about the horse in the future; has it been discussed already?
TIM RITCHEY: We discussed it a long time ago. As long as the horse is healthy and sound, we're never going to do anything to submit him to anything that will hurt him. He's too great a horse to do that with. We've already discussed our goals right now are to get through the three year old year, get a break over the winter and run him as a four year old.

Q. Will he not face older horses this year?
TIM RITCHEY: He's got the Haskell the Travers the Super Derby is a possibility and Breeder's' cup. He may face older horses in the Breeder's cup. He's also versatile enough, four or five races -- not like he has to run in the classic. He can run in the turf in the sprint. There's a lot of different things we can do with this horse. See how the rest of the year plays out.

Q. Would you think he would need a race against older horses before the Breeders' Cup.
TIM RITCHEY: I don't think so.

Q. Without second guessing what somebody else chose to do, did you think it was not as good for the game last year as it might have been if Smarty had been able to get out there and fans see him a few days? Was that part of your thought process?
TIM RITCHEY: I can't speak for the Smarty Jones crew. Obviously that horse had a problem and he was way too much of a champion, too great a horse to risk any serious injury. That I'm sure that was the decision behind him. John Servis is a good friend of mine. I know he feels like me, if his horse was healthy I know he would have been running as four year old. In the same circumstances, if something serious comes up with this horse, you can't put a horse like this in jeopardy. He's just too valuable. I couldn't do it.

Q. He's a survivor though.
TIM RITCHEY: Yes he is. First 12 days of his life he proved right there he was a survivor.
THE MODERATOR: Any other questions?
Thank you all for your time and congratulations.