SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK - JUNE 08: Luis Saez is up on Dornoch defeating Mindframe with Irad Ortiz ... [+]
Going off at a daunting 17-1, Dornoch broke from the rest of the runners and assumed the lead at the top of the backstretch alongside the far more favored Mindframe, then held off the latter’s hard challenge in the stretch to bring the 156th Belmont a fine upset early on Saturday evening at Saratoga. Dornoch took home $1.2 million and gave trainer Danny Gargan his first, exultant Belmont win.
For his part, champion jock Irad Ortiz gave the extremely lightly raced Mindframe an excellent trip, moving away from the pack with dispatch into the far turn with Dornoch, and staying with him out of the clubhouse turn into the stretch. It was an impressive performance that lived up to trainer Pletcher’s (and the Saratoga oddsmakers’) expectations, orchestrating a gritty performance out there that will put at least a few platoons of his doubters to rest. The Belmont was the third race of his short life. From the looks of him, there will be more.
Pletcher has been telling us that Mindframe is the real deal since stablemate Fierceness was moved to point at a different race. At the Belmont wire, Mindframe was just a shade more than a length behind. Dornoch just had more drive in the last furlong than Ortiz and Mindframe could match.
Coming on with his classic run in the stretch, the post-time favorite and mighty closer Sierra Leone ran a strong show, but in his two Triple Crown appearances this year, the horse has managed to assemble a budding reputation for leaving himself just a little too much to do in the last two furlongs. Sierra Leone hasn’t missed by much, but he has not rung the brass bell and hit it on the money, either. This isn’t necessarily how a trainer would most wish for a classic closer to be closing, given the fact that sometimes all the best closers miss their marks. That noted, placing in the Derby and showing in the Belmont is no slouch of a racer’s third year on the planet, but we still have the sense that Sierra Leone has the necessary talent to take the gold.
In fairness, the Kentucky Derby always confronts every contender with a titanic traffic snarl, and Sierra Leone’s problem in the Derby was very much the traffic. Despite that, and despite ceding Mystik Dan a shocking amount of ground by having to head outside, he got past everybody but Mystik Dan, and he very, very nearly caught him. This afternoon, he could not make it past Dornoch or Mindframe.
Entertainingly, a part owner of Dornoch is the former Philadelphia Phillies 2008 World Series star Jayson Werth, who was resplendent hoisting the huge Belmont trophy in Saratoga’s winner’s circle in his navy suit, topped with a big black cowboy hat and his trademark long outlaw-cowboy locks and red beard. Werth looked for all the world like Billy Ray Cyrus in Lil Nas’ country romp “Old Town Road.”
Wait, Isn't That Billy Ray Cyrus Hoisting The Silver? Former Philiadelphia Phillies outfielder and ... [+]
“This is as good as it gets in horse racing,” the ebullient World-Series-winning outfielder told the Fox cameras. “It’s as good as it gets in sports.”
Dornoch paid a bracing $37.40 to win, Mindframe, who continued to have backers all afternoon at the track, tempered only slightly by his inexperience, paid an expected low $6.80 to place. Sierra Leone paid an unremarkable $2.60 in show.
Winning jockey Luis Saez first rode Dornoch eleven months ago at Saratoga, and famously told trainer Gargan after the run that he had a Derby winner on his hands. Saez ebulliently recounted that for the cameras today after the win: “I told Danny, 'You have the Derby winner.’ Unfortunately, the Derby's a crazy race and we draw that No. 1 hole. Today, we have pretty good confidence that we could win this race."
Saez and trainer Gargan were not the only two people who believed in Dornoch’s talent in the runup to the Derby, but they were among the dwindling few by the time the Belmont rolled around. Hence the amplitude of the upset. Every upset in racing exerts two sorts of salubrious force on the sport, foremost, a larger democratizing effect in the sense of showing it’s possible for anybody with a good run in them to win on the day, and second, among the closest connections, it creates the inevitable volcanic eruption of joy and long-suffering relief at being validated.
Noting that he had always believed in his horse, Trainer Gargan was no exception, to the point of speechlessness. “It’s... speechless,” he managed, presumably referring to his own heady state at having, like his talented athlete, won his first Belmont.
