Alan Truex: Racing under fire in the West, but Belmont’s still a jewel
Updated Wednesday, June 5
In a good year the Belmont Stakes is the apex of the horse racing season: final jewel of the Triple Crown, sparkling at one of America’s most historic and scenic tracks. If this were a good year, Saturday’s Belmont would determine if there will be a Triple Crown winner, as there was last year with Justify and in 2015 with American Pharoah.
But this is not a good year. Arguably it’s the worst year in the history of the sport.
The disqualification-wrecked Kentucky Derby was followed by a Preakness Stakes with a riderless horse and without the horse who won the Derby and the one who was stripped of the win.
Yet, those weird events are inconsequential compared to the ever-mounting death toll among horses at California’s Santa Anita Park over the past six months.
We were hoping this tragic era ended with the spring rebuild of the track’s foundation that resulted in more absorption of impact. April’s Santa Anita Derby ran without incident, and the track enjoyed six weeks of no fatalities.
But then came another wave of horror: three horses dying in nine days. Which brings the total fatalities of the meet to 26.
So back to square one. The Los Angeles Times editorialized: “That’s an extraordinary cluster of deaths in a relatively short period of time, and the park still has no good explanation of why it happened. It’s time for Santa Anita to end its season and stop racing until it has one.”
Problem is it’s a multifaceted problem, beginning with breeders for the past four decades emphasizing speed over durability in an animal with a fragile bone structure. So we have horses who are kept active through medications such as Lasix, the popular diuretic that reduces bleeding and improves airflow through the lungs.
Horses who should be resting and rehabbing in the pasture are racing each other as owners and trainers try to squeeze another purse out of them.
So why Santa Anita? Horses die at all tracks – 15 this year in New York – but the mortality rate at Santa Anita is unprecedented and the most troubling. California trainers hasten to defend this track (blame it on the weather) because their livelihoods depend on its continued existence.
The truth is they’re a major part of the problem. As a group the Californians are more aggressive in their conditioning than trainers at most other tracks.
Santa Anita’s horses average 3.05 works per start – three times the number at other tracks.
Belinda Stronach, CEO of Santa Anita Park, has instituted a series of reforms: Lasix use curtailed, all medications administered only by state-licensed veterinarians, no meds at all on race day; close monitoring of trainers, who must apply to work a horse at least 48 hours in advance.
Stronach’s reform program was endorsed by Kathy Guillermo, senior vice president of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. But PETA laments that other tracks are not replicating the Stronach model.
In fact, Stronach has not installed the new safety procedures at her tracks in Maryland and Florida. She’s encountering too much opposition from horsemen in those states, where PETA lacks the influence over politicians that it has in California.
PETA is alarmed by the racehorse fatality rate of 1%: Last year 49,000 raced, 493 died. “Nothing short of a zero fatality rate is acceptable,” Guillermo says.
Fatalities are part of the sport, as they are of car racing and alpine skiing. Animal rights advocates argue that horses, unlike human athletes, have no choice. But the only reason thoroughbreds exist is to race.
This battle is already being waged by politicians. Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator from California, is pushing for a Santa Anita shutdown until more science is in on equine mortality.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the country the Belmont Stakes beckons, trying to salvage something from the ravaged Triple Crown season.
Test of Champions it’s called, because at 1 ½ miles it’s the longest of the three legs, on a track with sweeping turns and a deep, tiring surface – hence the nickname, The Big Sandy.
Preakness winner War of Will drew the No. 9 post for the Belmont, where post is irrelevant if a normal pace develops and horses are spread out entering the turn.
The pace Saturday (5:48 post, CST, NBC) should be lively. Joevia, who’s never finished better than 11th in graded stakes, is the only front runner, but War of Will, Tax and Spinoff will press him. Belmont is “the graveyard of front runners” because the endless turns won’t let them relax. Joevia has little chance of stealing this jewel, as indicated by his morning line of 30/1.
War of Will at 2/1 is second-favorite behind Tacitus, 9/5 from the farthest post, No. 10.
Sired by the trendy Tapit, out of Grade 1 winner Cross Hatches, Tacitus should have more stamina than the son of War Front.
More significantly, Tacitus has five weeks since his last race. War of Will, by contrast, has five races – all graded stakes – in five months.
He has no timed works leading into the Belmont. By tapping the brakes, trainer Mark Casse signals that the colt is cycling down.
Tacitus on Sunday breezed five furlongs at Belmont in a bullet 60 seconds, with his race rider, Jose Ortiz, aboard. “Very even, with nice rhythm,” is how Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott described the tuneup.
Tacitus is a deserving favorite but is no bargain at 9/5. Consider Bourbon War, 12/1. He’s a stretch runner who prepped at speed-favoring Gulfstream. He probably would have won the Fountain of Youth and the Florida Derby if they’d been a furlong more.
Bourbon War fell short of qualifying for the Kentucky Derby, and he was a head-scratching 8th in the Preakness. Trainer Mark Hennig had no explanation. “He wasn’t tired at all when it was over. He was actually angry after the Preakness. l held him for a bath after the race, and he bit me in the stomach.”
I don’t know how many angry horses have won the Belmont over the past century and a half, but it would seem appropriate for this year.
