Belmont Stakes

ARCADIA, CA - As Javier Castellano gets ready to ride three mounts on Breeders' Cup Saturday, the recently turned 46-year-old is amidst one of the best years of his career. And it almost never happened. A pair of Breeders' Cup wins at the 2019 Championships put an exclamation point on the Hall of Famer's eighth straight season with more than $20 million in earnings. But, the year 2020, like it was for so many, was more about overcoming adversity for the native of Venezuela. Castellano was the first jockey to...

ARCADIA, CA -- After missing the last three days of training with a foot issue, leading 3-year-old Arcangelo (Arrogate-Modeling, by Tapit) was withdrawn from Saturday's $6-million GI Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita and will be retired to begin his career at stud at Lane's End Farm in 2024. A powerful winner of this year's GI Belmont S. and GI Travers S., the gray had a warm hind foot and had a shoe pulled on Saturday. He was listed as the 7-2 second choice on the morning line for the...

Blue Rose Farm's Arcangelo (Arrogate--Modeling, by Tapit), a likely favorite for the upcoming GI Breeders' Cup Classic, will enter stud at Lane's End Farm at the conclusion of his racing career. The gray went to the head of the sophomore division with victories in the GI Belmont S. and GI Travers S. He also captured this year's GIII Peter Pan S. "It has been a surreal experience to own a horse of this magnitude," said owner Jon Ebbert. "The day I laid eyes on him at the yearling sale, I...

Blue Rose Farm's Arcangelo (Arrogate) continued preparations for the Nov. 4 GI Breeders' Cup Classic with a five-furlong drill in 1:00.00 (3/33) at Santa Anita Sunday. Trainer Jena Antonucci, in from New York to watch the work, clocked Arcangelo's final furlong in under :12. He galloped out an extra two furlongs, which Antonucci clocked in ":13 and change" for each furlong. "It was a serious work. A pretty work," Antonucci said immediately after the drill. "I wanted sub-12 seconds the final furlong, which he gave me. I think I'm pretty...

After getting brushed and shuffled in the early stages of Saturday's GI Travers S. while losing momentum and position, Javier Castellano decided to wing his trip aboard 2.7-1 second choice Arcangelo (Arrogate). He would later explain with a laugh--in the way that only winning jockeys can find humor when their riding tactics go off-kilter--that "it seemed to me that everybody had a plan, except myself." Sometimes no plan ends up being the best plan, as demonstrated by Arcangelo's artful dissection of a "loaded" Midsummer Derby that brought together not only...

In many ways, it was a 'good' problem to have. Having added a maiden success in the GI Kentucky Derby to his Hall of Fame resume at long last aboard Mage (Good Magic) in early May, jockey Javier Castellano continued a magical ride when teaming with Jena Antonucci to make history in the GI Belmont S. on the progressive Arcangelo (Arrogate), as the connections of Mage turned their collective attention to the second half of the season. Mage resumed with a very good runner-up effort when reportedly not fully fit...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - With the three winners of the Triple Crown races gathered for just the fourth time in the GI Travers S. Saturday, will history repeat itself? Will a horse that did not run in the GI Kentucky Derby, GI Preakness S. or the GI Belmont S. deliver an upset in the 154th Travers? That is how it played out in 1918 with Sun Briar, again in 1982 with Runaway Groom and six years ago when West Coast won the 2017 running of Saratoga's oldest stakes race. If...

Il Miracolo (c, 3, Gun Runner--Tapit's World, by Tapit), a longshot second in Saratoga's Curlin S. July 21, broke through with a career high in Tuesday's GIII Smarty Jones S. at Parx. Drawn widest of all in post eight, the 7-2 chance was hustled from his outside draw and raced three wide around the clubhouse turn. He sat a perfect, stalking trip from an outside third, made his move on the far turn, kicked for home as the one to catch, and, despite drifting out badly down the lane,  was...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - By his measured standard, Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher--rarely one to over-hype his horses-- practically gushes when he talks about Nest (Curlin). "She's just pure class in everything she does," Pletcher said. "If they were all like her, it'd be a much easier game than it actually is." Co-owner Mike Repole, an enthusiastic promoter of his horses, talks about the 4-year-old in almost reverential terms. "I've been blessed to have so many special, great horses, but she has a brilliance about her," Repole said. "The...

As Tuesday's entry time looms, the GI Travers S. is shaping up as a rare showdown of the three winners of this season's Triple Crown races. That's happened only five times since 1978, and on no occasion during the last 45 years when the winners of those spring Classics all graced the starting gate for Saratoga's "Midsummer Derby" has any one of them emerged victorious. That's a fairly daunting stat considering how the match-up of the GI Kentucky Derby, GI Preakness S. and GI Belmont S. winners is essentially what...

1/ST Racing & Gaming is ready to shake up the Triple Crown. The company, which operates Pimlico Race Course, has confirmed to the TDN that it is giving strong consideration to moving the date of the GI Preakness S. so that it is run four weeks after the GI Kentucky Derby. "We have discussed it internally and believe it's in the best interests of horses and horse safety to move the race four weeks after the Kentucky Derby," said Aidan Butler, Chief Executive Officer of 1/ST Racing & Gaming. "This...