The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pletcher takes Crown bookends
Tapwrit captures Belmont for Derbywinning trainer.
Tapwrit overtook NEW YORK — favored Irish War Cry in the stretch to win the Belmont Stakes by two lengths on Saturday, giving trainer Todd Pletcher his third career victory in the final leg of the Triple Crown.
Ridden by Jose Ortiz, Tapwrit ran 1 1/2 miles in 2:30.02 on his home track. Ortiz’s brother Irad won the race last year with Creator.
“The distance, I was sure he could handle it,” Ortiz said.
Tapwrit finished sixth in the Kentucky Derby and skipped the Preakness. Five of the last nine Belmont winners have followed that path.
“We felt like with the five weeks in between, and with the way this horse had trained, that he had a legitimate chance,” said Pletcher, who is based at Belmont Park. “I think that’s always an advantage.”
Pletcher took two of the year’s three Triple Crown races, having saddled Always Dreaming in the Derby.
Tapwrit went off at 5-1 odds. The 3-year-old gray colt was purchased for $1.2 million, making him the most expensive horse in the field.
Irish War Cry was the 5-2 favorite. Patch, the one-eyed horse trained by Pletcher, was another 5 3/4 lengths back in third.
The $1.5 million race took several hits before the starting gate opened.
It lacked Always Dreaming and Preakness winner Cloud Computing. Classic Empire, the expected favorite, dropped out Wednesday with a foot abscess.
Epicharis, the early 4-1 second choice, was scratched Saturday morning after failing a pre-race veterinary exam. The Japan-based colt had been treated for lameness in his right front hoof earlier in the week.
All that left it a wide-open race, and in the end it was Tapwrit that proved he was up to the grueling challenge.
“Tapwrit was getting a beautiful trip,” Pletcher said. “It was everything we talked about in the paddock before the race. We were hoping he had enough when it came to crunch time. It looked like Irish War Cry still had a little something left, but the last sixteenth, he dug down deep.”
Irish War Cry, who finished 10th in the Kentucky Derby, went for the lead and was immediately pressured by 13-1 shot Meantime, ridden by Mike Smith, who won five stakes on the undercard.
“It actually wasn’t our plan to be on the lead,” said Graham Motion, who trains Irish War Cry. “We kind of hoped that somebody else would go for it, but he had to go to Plan B.”
Tapwrit, meanwhile, settled in third, right behind the dueling leaders. They maintained that positioning onto the final turn when Ortiz first asked Tapwrit for his run.
It took a while for Tapwrit to find his best gear. Up front, Irish War Cry put away Meantime and appeared a likely winner at the top of Belmont’s long stretch.
“At the eighth pole, I thought was might be home free,” Motion said, “but it’s the Belmont. It’s a tough race.”
That’s when Tapwrit took up the chase in earnest. It was a two-horse race to the finish, with Tapwrit gaining the lead in the final furlong.
Undercard: Songbird captured her comeback, winning the $750,000 Ogden Phipps Stakes for fillies and mares, while Mike Smith and trainer Bob Baffert also starred on the Belmont undercard.
Smith won five of the first seven stakes he rode in, teaming with Baffert for four of those victories.
Smith and Baffert, who are based in Southern California, combined to take the richest race of the undercard, the $1.2 million Metropolitan Handicap, with Mor Spirit ($7.10 to win).
They also won the $700,000 Acorn with Abel Tasman ($6.30), the $500,000 Woody Stephens with American Anthem ($5.90) and the $150,000 Easy Goer with West Coast ($5.70).
For Songbird, the Phipps was her first start since her lone career defeat — by a nose to Beholder — last November in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Santa Anita.