BELMONT Big test for Take These Chains

ELMONT, N.Y. – In her three starts, no horse has come close to matching strides with Take These Chains. Maybe she will find some competition while making her stakes debut Thursday at Belmont Park in the Grade 3, $250,000 Intercontinental. Then again, maybe she won’t. The Intercontinental, a seven-furlong grass race for older fillies and mares, is the last of three stakes on the first day of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival. First post for Thursday’s nine-race card is 2 p.m. Eastern, and after a gray, sodden start to the week on Long Island, there’s no rain forecast for that afternoon.

The stakes action starts in race 3 with the Grade 3, $200,000 Wonder Again for 3-year-old turf fillies at 1 1/8 miles, an apparently paceless race in which trainer Chad Brown has entered three horses (New Money Honey, Fifty Five, and Enchanting Kitten) and trainer Mark Casse two (Dream Dancing and Corporate Queen). Race 5 is the $150,000 Astoria, a 5 1/2-furlong dirt race for 2-year-old fillies, and race 6 starts the late pick four, which has a $250,000 guarantee and the Intercontinental as its penultimate leg.

Eleven were entered in the Intercontinental, but Nobody’s Fault will scratch.

KEY CONTENDERS

Take These Chains, by Fastnet Rock Last 3 Beyers: 93-85-78

◗ She’s almost certain to be favored for trainer Brown and jockey Javier Castellano, and betting short-priced horses stepping up in class generally is the wrong road to travel, but this filly could be special. “She’s nice – really nice,” Brown said.

◗ She won her career debut 14 months ago, going from last to first in a two-turn, 7 1/2-furlong Gulfstream route, and was equally impressive in her second start about a year ago at Belmont. She won that firstlevel allowance race and ran her last 4 1/2 furlongs in 51.79 seconds, an average of about 5.6 seconds per sixteenth of a mile. That’s flying home.

◗ She returned in a secondlevel allowance two months ago at this same seven-furlong Belmont trip and basically jogged across the finish, with Castellano having stopped riding her at about the sixteenth pole.

Mississippi Delta, by Giant’s Causeway Last 3 Beyers: 96-93-86

◗ Finished sixth in this race a year ago but might be better now.

◗ Trainer Casse turns her back from three two-turn races to start her season, and Mississippi Delta has the speed to sprint.

◗ Comes out of a solid fourthplace finish in the Distaff Turf Mile at Churchill, a race dominated by two very good horses, Roca Rojo and Believe in Bertie. Portmagee, by Hard Spun Last 3 Beyers: 90-86-78

◗ She’s won three of her four grass starts and led all the way over the Belmont course April 30, winning the $150,000 License Fee, her stakes debut, by 1 1/2 lengths.

◗ Portmagee stayed on well at six furlongs last out but has yet to try a distance longer than that.

“Seven-eighths is like the end of the world for her,” said trainer Christophe Clement. “If we get too much rain before the race, it will be against her.”

Conquest Babayaga, by Uncle Mo Last 3 Beyers: 88-85-79

◗ Brown’s second runner is 2 for 2 under his care. She got through along the inside and made up a lot of ground in winning a second-level Keeneland allowance race around two turns last out.

“She’s a progressive horse that keeps improving, and I like the cutback for her,” Brown said.