Creator wins the 148th running of the Belmont Stakes
The 148th running of the Gr1 Belmont Stakes on 11 June 2016 saw a finish dominated by greys, when WinStar Farm and celebrity chef Bobby Flay’s 16-1 shot Creator (Steve Asmussen/Irad Ortiz) dug deep to catch Destin in the shadow of the post to win the third leg of the 2016 Triple Crown by a nose. A length and three-quarters back in third was the Japanese runner Lani, completing a 1-2-3 for greys in the 1 ½ mile $1.5 million contest.
Disappointment of the race was Preakness winner Exaggerator, who was sent off hot favourite. He endured a horrible trip. After breaking from gate 11 in the 13-runner field, Exaggerator sat closer to the pace than usual, racing four wide and fighting jockey Kent Desormeaux throughout. He faded to 11th after being eased in the stretch.
Pacemaker
The race was a tactical masterpiece, as longshot Gettysburg made the running to set things up for his Asmussen-trained stable companion.
The colt is not without controversy. Gettysburg was a late entry to the Belmont for Creator’s majority owners WinStar Farms, who took the colt from Todd Pletcher’s barn only in the week before the race; ironically, Pletcher saddled Destin, who would surely have won without Gettysburg getting in front of him.
Although the Creator team insisted Gettysburg was not there to act as a rabbit, he was the only obvious front-runner in the race, and so it proved as he led Destin around the wide Belmont oval, clicking off fractions of :24.09, :48.48, and 1:13.38 through six furlongs. Destin cruised by in the final turn, after tracking the front-runner in second and opened up a clear advantage in the home stretch. Creator, who had moved up steadily after racing in 11th and 10th early, found himself sixth after a mile in 1:37.96 and continued to save ground in the final bend.
Creator by a nose! (photo: Belmont Stakes)
Creator and Lani loomed a closing danger and Destin looked a winner in every stride but the last, as Creator got his head down where it mattered most, completing the 1 ½ mile trip in 2m 28.51s to deny Destin by a nose. Lani held for third with Governor Malibu in fourth. Next came Stradivari, Brody’s Cause, Cherry Wine, Gettysburg, Suddenbreakingnews, Trojan Nation, Exaggerator, Seeking the Soul, and Forever d’Oro.
First For Asmussen
Steve Asmussen
It was a first Belmont victory for Asmussen, who trained Horse of the Year Curlin to a narrow defeat at the hands of the Pletcher-conditioned Rags to Riches in the Belmont race nine years ago. He said, “It’s the best feeling right now. The great thing about racing — you can have a bad day, a bad week, a bad month. They don’t put you behind the gates. They put you up even and give you a chance to prove yourself.”
“I thought Irad gave him a perfect trip. I thought he saved yards and won by inches. He made the difference. He saved a lot of ground going into the first turn. Gettysburg did his job. A great call by [WinStar CEO] Elliott [Walden] there. Forty-eight and four for a half allowed Creator to show who he is. I thought quite a bit of traffic around the quarter pole; Irad was beautifully patient. He went through a lot of traffic very smooth. Very proud of Creator; he stayed focused through the traffic and did all he could to get up and win a great race.” Asmussen is due to be inducted into the Hall of Fame later this year.
Ortiz, among the leading riders on the New York circuit, was winning his first Classic. Despite the tight nature of the photo finish, he celebrated as soon as they crossed the wire. “It’s an amazing feeling and it’s very, very important for me,” said the jockey. “When he got clear, he started rolling and I knew he’d get to the other horse. I’m very happy.”
Both the first two had run in the Kentucky Derby – where Destin was sixth and Creator a troubled 13th – before skipping the Preakness, whereas UAE Derby winner Lani can take great credit after running in all three Triple Crown races.
Questions may well be asked if rumours that Gettysburg will be moved straight back to Pletcher prove to be correct; he will have been under Asmussen’s care for precisely a week.
Exaggerator
Preakness winner, Exaggerator
Race favourite Exaggerator, remained in contention into the stretch despite his four-wide trip, but once it was clear his chances had gone, Kent Desormeaux wrapped up on him. “When I picked him up at the quarter pole to try and win the race, there was nothing there,” he said. “I was praying to God that the reins were lying to me. The horse that (has been) keen to progress was not underneath me. I said, ‘Show me your stuff,’ and there was nothing there. By the time we got to the eighth pole, he was stepping on his tongue and I said, ‘That’s enough.'”
Trainer, Keith Desormeaux, didn’t have any definitive answers as to why the Curlin colt lacked his late kick. “The Triple Crown might have caught up to him. We will have to see. When he pulled up, he didn’t look winded. I don’t know. We’ll have to figure it out. Maybe he was just struggling with the surface. I was hoping to dispel the sloppy track thing but that has to come into play as well. I think it’s mostly Belmont is a deep, sandy surface and he might have had a little trouble with it.”
Fairytale
That winning feeling
Just hours prior to Wednesday’s draw, celebrity chef Bobby Flay acquired a minority interest in Gr1 Arkansas Derby hero Creator. “The truth was that I had planned to bring about 15 to 20 people to the Belmont Stakes, which I do every year, and I had a horse named America, a filly, who was going to run in the Gr1 Ogden Phipps, but I retired her just last month. So I really had nothing to run,” Flay told the post-race news conference. “So I wanted to make sure my guests had a very enjoyable experience. I wanted to purchase a horse to run, not necessarily in the Belmont Stakes – and there were a couple of other horses that we were looking at. Having a chance to be involved with a horse like that, with a farm like that, and the people that are involved in it, just it was a no brainer for me.”
Creator
Although it took him six starts to break his maiden, Creator now has a 3-4-1 record from 10 starts—including two Gr1 wins—with lifetime earnings of more than $1.5 million.
Creator is the second produce for his dam Morena, a 10-time winner and three-time champion in her native Peru. Acquired privately by Greg Goodman’s Mt Brilliant Broodmares LLC, Morena made eight trips to the post in the USA under the care of trainer Michael Matz, finishing runner-up in the Gr3 Obeah Stakes in 2009 and 2010 and third in the Gr1 Personal Ensign Stakes in 2009. Morena, whose broodmare sire Summing eked out a neck victory in the 1981 Belmont, is the dam of the current 2-year-old Pear Lemonade (Lemon Drop Kid), a yearling colt from the final crop of the late Street Cry (Ire) and a Tiznow filly that was foaled two days before this year’s Derby.
Bred by Mt Brilliant and named by WinStar president Elliott Walden, Creator was a $440,000 purchase by Maverick Racing at the 2014 Keeneland September sale and put in the care of Steve Asmussen. Tried on turf in his first two career starts, Creator ran a good second on debut at Churchill Down on 19 September 2015, followed by a fifth at Keeneland on 21 October. Switched to the dirt, Creator was runner-up in a sloppy Churchill maiden on 28 November, filling the same spot at the Fair Grounds on 31 December and 12 February before bursting through with a 7 1/4-length graduation at Oaklawn 15 days later.
Allowed to take his chance in the Gr2 Rebel Stakes on 19 March, Creator trailed by as many as 15 lengths and was still 10th nearing the final quarter mile, but rallied past seven of those rivals to complete a Tapit 1-3, three lengths behind Cupid. With his form on an upswing entering the 16 April Gr1 Arkansas Derby, he found himself a distant last, but this time his stretch rally carried him to a 1 1/4-length defeat of fellow back marker Suddenbreakingnews (Mineshaft). Never in contention in the Gr1 Kentucky Derby, Creator was beaten better than 18 lengths in 13th at odds of 16-1 and offered those who still believed a similar odds on Saturday.
Tapit
Lastly, it was also a memorable afternoon for Gainesway sire Tapit, who also produced the third-placed Lani as well as the ultra-impressive Gr1 Metropolitan Handicap winner Frosted.
Replay below:-
