Expect strong performance from Baeza at Saratoga
Ahead of the 2025 Belmont Stakes, Jay Croucher and Drew Dinsick discuss the three best horses in the Triple Crown this year: Baeza, Sovereignty and Journalism.
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24 minutes ago
Sovereignty vs. Journalism in the Belmont gives horse racing a Kentucky Derby rematch
Horse racing is getting a Kentucky Derby rematch in the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday to close out the Triple Crown. Derby winner Sovereignty and runner-up Journalism, who won the Preakness two weeks later, headline the field of eight in the Belmont. Add in Baeza, and the top three finishers from the first Saturday in May are involved. 'We're delighted to have the first three horses out of the Derby challenging each other again,' said Michael Banahan of Godolphin, which owns Sovereignty. 'It's a quality race. ... It should set up well, and may the best horse win.' Journalism opened as the 8-5 morning line favorite with Sovereignty the second choice at 4-1. Journalism won the Preakness run without Sovereignty after owners and trainer Bill Mott opted to give their horse extra rest. The intent was to focus on the Belmont rather than chase the chance for Sovereignty to become the sport's 14th Triple Crown champion and first since Justify in 2018. 'We felt that the best thing for him and to have a career through the whole season, and maybe into next year as well, was spacing his races a little bit,' Banahan said. 'Bill Mott, who's trained horses for us for a long time, is very judicious about where he wants to place his horses. And we put a lot of faith in the recommendations that he would give us.' Michael McCarthy-trained Journalism is the only horse running in all three legs of the Triple Crown this year. And he is the favorite for a reason. 'Journalism is a very tough horse,' said John Shirreffs, who trains Baeza. 'One thing about Journalism, (if) he runs his race (like in) Kentucky, Pimlico, he's very tough. He's solid. So, it's going to be a very difficult horse to beat.' Shirrefs said Baeza is emerging and developing, hoping the half-brother of last year's Belmont winner, Dornoch, can stride along and get past Sovereignty and Journalism this time. 'Hopefully we get out of the gate well and get a nice pace,' Shirrefs said. 'It's just the how the race unfolds and him not getting into any trouble.' Long shot Heart of Honor is running again after finishing fifth in the Preakness three weeks ago. New to the Triple Crown trail are Hill Road, Uncaged, Crudo and Rodriguez, who was scratched from the Derby with a minor foot bruise that also caused him to miss the Preakness. Banahan expects Rodriguez to go to the lead, as so many of Hall of Fame and two-time Triple Crown-winning trainer Bob Baffert's top horses do, and provide the main speed. 'That horse is going to be ready,' Chad Brown, trainer of Hill Road, said of Rodriguez. 'You can be assured of that. And it sure looks like he's by far the fastest horse in the race.' Brown has won the Preakness twice but never the Belmont. After going to Saratoga with his parents while growing up and getting into horse racing as a result, he's hoping to end his drought at his home track. 'We have a very unique time in history where there'll be three Belmont Stakes run total at Saratoga before you'll never see another one again,' Brown said. 'So, to be part of history with that, that would be extra special.'
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
The horse Bobby Flay couldn't sell has long-shot Belmont Stakes dream
SARATOGA SPRINGS — At 15-1 odds, Crudo is a long shot to outrun Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty and Preakness champion Journalism to the wire in Saturday's Belmont Stakes at Saratoga. One could argue, however, that this outcome would be no more of a surprise than the circumstances that led Crudo into the Triple Crown race in the first place for owners Bobby Flay and Jimmy Ventura and Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. 'Jimmy and I were going to buy him as a pinhook proposition — we bought him as a weanling and we were going to sell him as a yearling. We brought him to the Saratoga [Fasig-Tipton] sale, and he didn't sell, so we kept him,' Flay, the chef, restaurant magnate and Food Network star told The Post early Friday morning before visiting Crudo. 'I don't usually race colts. I usually race fillies only. But I have him, so he's racing, and he's turned out to have talent,' Flay continued. 'The Belmont Stakes is New York's most important race and as a New Yorker, it's clearly important to me.' 3 Celebrity chef Bobby Flay is pictured next to Crudo on June 6. Jason Szenes for the NY Post Flay, 60, says he's been watching horse racing since his teenage years when he and his friends from the Yorkville neighborhood in upper Manhattan would cut school and take the A train to Aqueduct. The Belmont Stakes has long been a staple of Flay's social calendar. 'I go to the Belmont every year. I usually take 20-30 people to Belmont Park and make a day out of it,' Flay said. 'It's become a tradition where I have people over to my house for brunch, everyone comes dressed in their racing gear — suits, summer dresses, hats. I feed them in the morning and then put everyone in cars and we go to Belmont and we have a day.' He said those nights usually end with a group dinner at Wolfgang's Steakhouse on 33rd Street. But Saturday, the stakes will be much higher. On Preakness Day at Pimlico, in his third career start, Crudo won the Sir Barton Stakes by 7¹/₂ lengths. Pletcher, a four-time winner in the Belmont, gave the son of 2018 Triple Crown champion Justify a few weeks to breeze, considered other options and decided to give it a go in the $2 million race. 'The horse is here, he's doing well, I don't see a whole lot of pace in the race, we've got [jockey] John Velazquez available,' Pletcher said. 'I couldn't come up with a reason not to give it a try.' Crudo's name, not surprisingly, has ties to the culinary world. 3 Bobby Flay is pictured June 6. Jason Szenes for the NY Post 'I came up with the name,' Flay said, explaining he acknowledged raw talent, though on menus everywhere the word means raw fish. 'It's so hard to name these horses. I liked the fact that it meant raw because he was such a young horse when we bought him and he had talent. 'I told Jimmy what I named him and he was like, 'Really?' He wasn't impressed,' Flay added about his partner, who is in commercial real estate and has been involved in horse racing for more than 30 years. 'Naming horses and naming restaurants. If they turn out to be good, the name makes perfect sense. It couldn't be anything else.' Flay spent much of his spring rooting on his beloved Knicks from the first few rows at Madison Square Garden. Like most fans, he reveled in the team's longest playoff run in 25 years and still is feeling the disappointment. 3 Bobby Flay and co-owner James Ventura are pictured with their horse, Crudo, on June 6. Jason Szenes for the NY Post 'I remember all the playoff seasons when we ran into Michael Jordan,' said Flay, who lists the Knicks and Yankees as his biggest sports passions. 'We were good then, but we kind of couldn't get past it. It was fun to watch those guys play this year. They're a really good team and, unfortunately, they lost to Indiana.' Flay said he was surprised at the firing of coach Tom Thibodeau. 'I am. I thought he did a good job. I mean, we beat the world champions. We beat the Celtics soundly,' he said. 'A couple things go different ways and you're in the Finals. I don't always think that new is a good idea, but it's not my team.' His team on Saturday is Crudo-Flay-Ventura-Pletcher. 'Both Bobby and Jimmy love horse racing. Bobby's been terrific to train for, for a number of years,' Pletcher said. 'He's knowledgeable and also always says, 'You can make the decision.' We've had some success together and these guys are fun to train for.'
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Meet the horses running in the Belmont Stakes
The Belmont Stakes is set to host a rematch in New York on Saturday of the top three finishing horses from the Kentucky Derby to close out horse racing's Triple Crown for 2025. Five weeks after Sovereignty won the Derby over Journalism and Baeza, the three horses will be among the eight competing in the last race of the Triple Crown — the series for 3-year-olds consisting of the Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont. Sovereignty's connections chose to skip the Preakness in Baltimore to prepare for the Belmont, meaning no horse would win the Triple Crown this year. Advertisement 2025 Belmont Stakes horses and odds Journalism, who won the Preakness two weeks after coming in second at the Derby, was picked as the morning-line favorite for the Belmont with 8-5 odds. The odds will change as bettors place their wagers leading up to Saturday's approximate post time of 7:04 p.m. EDT. Here's a list of all the horses racing in the Belmont in order by their number with their morning-line odds: 1. Hill Road, 10-12. Sovereignty, 2-13. Rodriguez, 6-14. Uncaged, 30-15. Crudo, 15-16. Baeza, 4-17. Journalism, 8-58. Heart of Honor, 30-1 The Belmont will be 1 1/4 miles long instead of the usual 1 1/2 miles, making the race known as the Test of the Champion the same length as the Derby. The change is because the Belmont is temporarily being held at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York, about a 45-minute drive north of the state capital of Albany. Advertisement "Shame the Belmont is not a mile-and-a-half," said Heart of Honor's trainer, Jamie Osborne, according to a news release after the Preakness. The brown colt didn't have the best start, but passed four horses to finish fifth in the 1 3/16-mile race, the shortest of the Triple Crown races. The Belmont is expected to return to Long Island's Belmont Park next year after the completion of a massive redevelopment project. While the Triple Crown has been won twice in the past decade — with American Pharoah ending a 37-year drought in 2015 and Justify in 2018 — winning just the Preakness and the Belmont has become more of a novelty. It was last accomplished in 2005 by Afleet Alex, who finished third in the Derby. At the Preakness, Journalism barreled down the stretch to overcome Gosger and win by half a length at Pimlico Race Course. The bay colt was the morning-line favorite for the Preakness as well as the Derby, winning over oddsmakers with four straight victories in California, including April's Santa Anita Derby, March's San Felipe Stakes and December's Los Alamitos Futurity Stakes. Advertisement Jockey Umberto Rispoli, who was aboard Journalism for those three races, the Preakness and the Derby, will have the mount again for the Belmont. Journalism's trainer, Michael McCarthy, has only had one other horse in the Belmont, Rombauer, who came in third in 2021. Journalism trains on the track for the 157th running of the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on June 5, 2025, in Saratoga Springs, New York. / Credit:With 2-1 odds in the morning line, Sovereignty will try to achieve a rarer feat than winning just the Preakness and the Belmont: victories at the Derby and the Belmont. The last horse to do that was Thunder Gulch in 1995 after finishing third at the Preakness. While Sovereignty skipped the Triple Crown's middle jewel, the bay colt wasn't completely out of the news. His jockey, Junior Alvarado, was fined $62,000 and suspended for two racing days in Kentucky by the state's Board of Stewards for allegedly using his riding crop too much in the Derby. Alvarado is appealing the decision. Advertisement Alvarado will be riding Sovereignty on Saturday, which will be the jockey's fourth mount in the Belmont. Last year, he was aboard Resilience, who finished in 10th place and was trained by Bill Mott. The two have teamed up again with Sovereignty. Mott has trained a Belmont winner before — Drosselmeyer, who won in 2010. Sovereignty comes into the Belmont after finishing second at March's Florida Derby and winning the Fountain of Youth Stakes in Florida and October's Street Sense Stakes at Churchill Downs, the home of the Derby. Sovereignty breezes during morning workouts on the Oklahoma Training Track at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York, June 4, 2025. / Credit: Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images Baeza didn't initially draw a post for the Derby and only entered the field when Rodriguez was scratched from the race two days before the Run for the Roses. He broke from the post on the far outside and came in third behind Journalism by a neck. Before the Derby, the bay colt came in second at the Santa Anita Derby, also behind Journalism. Advertisement Baeza was given 4-1 morning-line odds for the Belmont and will be under Flavien Prat, who also had the mount in the Derby. Prat's been in the past four runnings of the Belmont, riding Hot Rod Charlie to second place in 2021. Trainer John Shirreffs has had three other horses in the Belmont, most recently Gormley, who came in fourth in 2017. Baeza breezes during his morning workout at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York, June 4, 2025. / Credit: Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images Rodriguez was scratched from the Derby over what co-owner Tom Ryan described as a "small but slightly sensitive foot bruise." Trainer Bob Baffert said the dark bay colt has healed and is performing as well as he was before he won the Wood Memorial Stakes in April at New York City's Aqueduct Racetrack, according to a New York Racing Association news release. Baffert has trained three Belmont winners: American Pharoah, Justify and Point Given, who won the race by 12 1/2 lengths in 2001. With 6-1 odds in the morning line, Rodriguez will be under Mike Smith, who's looking for his fourth Belmont win. Advertisement Hill Road, who was given 10-1 morning-line odds for the Belmont, won the Peter Pan Stakes at Aqueduct last month and finished third in the Tampa Bay Derby in March and in November's Breeders' Cup Juvenile in California. Irad Ortiz Jr. will be aboard the bay colt in pursuit of his third Belmont win, most recently riding Mo Donegal to victory in 2022. Hill Road will be trainer Chad Brown's fifth career entry in the race. He's still seeking his first Belmont win after coming close with third-place Sierra Leone in 2024 and second-place Gronkowski in 2018. Crudo, who's co-owned by celebrity chef Bobby Flay, was given 15-1 odds in the morning line. The bay colt won the Sir Barton Stakes, one of the undercard races for the Preakness, and will be trainer Todd Pletcher's chance for a fifth Belmont win. John Velazquez will have the mount, going for his third victory at the race. Pletcher's second horse in the race, Uncaged, won at Saratoga in August and at Aqueduct in April but came in sixth at the Peter Pan. With 30-1 morning-line odds, the bay colt will be under Luis Saez, who won the Belmont with Dornoch last year and with Essential Quality in 2021. Advertisement With Heart of Honor, the other horse to be given 30-1 odds in the morning line, Saffie Osborne has a chance to become the first woman to ride to victory in a Triple Crown race since Julie Krone won the Belmont in 1993 aboard Colonial Affair. In addition to finishing fifth at the Preakness, the British-bred brown colt raced in the United Arab Emirates, coming in second at the UAE Derby in April. 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