1 of 5 | Jockey Luis Suez, aboard Dornoch, smiles in the winners circle after winning the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Photo by Mark Abraham/UPI | License Photo
June 8 (UPI) — Dornoch, 10th in the Kentucky Derby, rebounded with a 1/2-length victory in Saturday’s $2 million Grade I Belmont Stakes, becoming the third winner in the three legs of this year’s U.S. Triple Crown.
Mindframe, making just his third career start, finished second and might have won had he run a true course down the stretch. Sierra Leone, second in the Kentucky Derby, finished third.
Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan was never in the picture and finished eighth in the Belmont and Preakness winner Seize the Grey faded to get home seventh after battling Dornoch for the early lead.
The 156th running of the race, the third leg of the Triple Crown, was staged at Saratoga in upstate New York because Belmont Park on Long Island is being rebuilt. Because of the configuration of the Saratoga track, the race also was shortened from to 1 1/4 miles from 1 1/2 miles.
Jockey Luis Saez lost no time in putting Dornoch, a 17-1 long shot, into the race. The full brother to 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage, battled for the lead with Seize the Grey before leaving that tiring rival behind at the top of the stretch.
Approaching the furlong marker, Mindframe emerged from the field to challenge Dornoch but, after a left-handed smack of the whip by jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. at the furlong marker, he veered toward the stands side of the track.
Ortiz got the lightly raced colt, making his stakes debut, straightened out at the 16th pole, but too late to catch the winner.
Dornoch, a Good Magic colt trained by Danny Gargan, finished in 2:01.64 over a fast track.
Dornoch had won the Grade II Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct in December and joined the ranks of Kentucky Derby favorites with a victory in the Grade II Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park in his 3-year-old debut.
Then things went south, as he finished fourth in the Grade I Blue Grass at Keeneland and 10th in the Run for the Roses — defeats his connections attributed to circumstances rather than any lack of ability.
Returning to the Saratoga winner’s circle, Saez said he has been confident in Dornoch since he rode him in his first race, a second-place finish — ironically behind Seize the Grey — at Saratoga on July 29.
“I told Danny after I rode him up here, ‘You have the Derby winner,'” Saez said. “Then in the Derby, we had the No. 1 hole and we had no chance. Today, we had pretty good confidence we would win the race.”
Part-owner Jason Werth, a former outfielder for the Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals, was on hand to celebrate Dornoch’s victory and ranked it against his baseball thrills.
“It’s as good as it gets in horse racing,” Werth said. “It’s as good as it gets in sports.”
With three individual winners in the three Triple Crown events, the remainder of the year will be a scramble for the year-end division championship with races like the Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park and the Travers, the “Midsummer Derby” at Saratoga likely to be key en route to the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
The picture would be further complicated if European connections follow through on hints the winner of last weekend’s Betfred Derby on Epsom Downs in England might be sent to challenge on the American dirt.
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