The Week in Review

You can argue–purely for the sport of it–whether trainer Bob Baffert's four-for-four sweep of stakes races and jockey Mike Smith's five-stakes pillaging on the premier day of racing at Belmont Park eclipsed the gravitas of the GI Belmont S. itself.

But in terms of using Saturday's New York stakes results as a predictor for what might happen in the second half of the season, you don't need a crystal ball to divine that the Baffert/Smith tandem is out-and-out loaded with stock that represents a firm grip across divisional leaderboards, while the Belmont S. might not be a reliable barometer to forecast which horse will wind up as 3-year-old champion.

Smith's rail-skimming score aboard favored Abel Tasman (Quality Road) in the GI Acorn S. gives that Baffert trainee an edge in the nationwide 3-year-old filly category, whetting the appetite for an eventual rematch with the currently shin-sidelined Unique Bella (Tapit). The continent's reigning big-money rider also piloted Mor Spirit (Eskendereya) to a favored pace-pressing win in the GI Metropolitan H., and the eye-catching 117 Beyer Speed Figure assigned to that effort stamps the Baffert-trained ridgling as the kingpin of dirt milers right now.

Although Baffert was not represented by a Belmont S. starter, he and Smith fired warning shots with two other favored sophomores who asserted themselves as players within the male 3-year-old division moving forward: West Coast (Flatter) uncorked a commanding move off the far turn to win the Easy Goer S., and American Anthem (Bodemeister)–who just two months ago was Baffert's top Triple Crown candidate–has now put together back-to-back seven-furlong stakes sores by rolling past overmatched rivals in the GII Woody Stephens S.

And–before we step away from the topic of Baffert's divisional dominance to focus a bit more on Smith–let's not forget that Baffert is still biding his time with older male powerhouse Arrogate (Unbridled's Song), winner of the world's two richest races within a two-month time frame earlier this year, and 2016's champion sprinter Drefong (Gio Ponti), both of whom have recently returned to the Santa Anita worktab with aims on starts later in the summer.

The Baffert quartet aside, it was Smith's deft handling of the Jerry Hollendorfer-trained Songbird (Medgalia d'Oro) that represented the horsebacking feat of the afternoon at Belmont Saturday.

Granted, at .35-1 odds the two-time champion was expected to throttle the GI Ogden Phipps S. But there was a masterful, patient touch to the way Smith let Songbird dart out of the gate and establish command, then waited for his main rival to commit to a drive before confidently hand-riding Songbird home without resorting to overly vigorous rousing. Such a move has become a Smith hallmark when he's entrusted with special horseflesh, and considering the 12-for-13 lifetime filly was making just her first start off a seven-month layoff, those measured tactics can be expected to pay dividends deeper into the season.

Dissecting the Belmont Stakes

Smith also played a role in how the Belmont S. unfolded. Even though his 13-1 mount, Meantime (Shackleford), didn't factor at the finish (eighth), the pressure that the keyed-up colt applied to 2.75-1 Irish War Cry (Curlin) over the first six furlongs of the race contributed to the favorite's undoing over final six furlongs.

Irish War Cry broke alertly and so too did eventual winner Tapwrit (Tapit). But while jockey Jose Ortiz was content to secure a sweet stalking spot on the fence with the easier-to-settle Tapwrit, Rajiv Maragh seemingly had no choice but to lead the charge into the first turn with the customarily aggressive Irish War Cry, with wider-drawn Meantime eventually engaging as his pesky escort.

It was no secret that these two colts were the main speed threats on paper, and it was not a departure from expected tactics to see the pair motoring together down the long Belmont back straight. But while Smith appeared as if he had nothing to lose by letting his lead-loving longshot spar with the favorite, Maragh and Irish War Cry never looked completely comfortable repelling those sustained challenges while pinned closest to the rail. Irish War Cry held Meantime at bay, but never authoritatively put him away.

By the time Maragh finally shrugged free around the far turn, a fresh Tapwrit was angled outward from his prime ground-saving position to attack Irish War Cry turning for home. The best two horses on paper clearly peeled away from the pack to decide the third jewel of the Triple Crown by themselves, and even though Irish War Cry dug in commendably, he was spent from being constantly hounded through the first 11 furlongs, and that was the difference-maker inside furlong number 12.

The all-out Tapwrit also showed signs of battle-weariness based on his propensity to shift and drift while being driven hard to the wire, and the non-consequential bump the two rivals exchanged late in the lane in a way conveniently bookended the entire Triple Crown series: At the gate break in the GI Kentucky Derby, it was Irish War Cry veering out into Tapwrit, contributing to poor showings by both colts in Louisville. Yet five weeks later, here they were again brushing in the final strides of the Belmont S. before Tapwrit edged away to a two-length victory.

Holy Bull Passes

The big off-track news this past week was the death of Hall-of-Famer Holy Bull, who was euthanized at age 26 on June 7 because of infirmities of old age. He had been living out his years at Jonabell Farm since being pensioned from stud duty in 2012.

Again, there is a Mike Smith connection, as the two partnered for 15 of the champ's 16 lifetime races (you get big-bonus trivia points if you knew Luis Rivera Jr. was the winning jockey for Holy Bull's career debut at Monmouth Park on Aug. 14, 1993).

Together Smith and “the Bull” racked up six Grade I races en route to being named champion 3-year-old colt of 1993 and Horse of the Year in 1994. The domineering gray (who only lost three times in his career) helped to solidify Smith's reputation as an elite-level rider, launching him to Eclipse Awards for outstanding jockey in those same two years.

Personally, I will always count Holy Bull's devastatingly easy-looking acceleration away from a deeply talented 1994 GI Woodward S. field at Belmont Park as the most authoritative far-turn move I have ever witnessed a racehorse unleash in person.

On a broader level, beyond the magnetism of the colt and the down-to-earth likeability of his New Jersey-based owner/trainer Warren “Jimmy” Croll, Holy Bull anchored the initial pillar in a bridge of charismatic older handicap stars whose dominance of United Sates racing in the 1990s defined the decade.

Going into 1995, the freakishly fast gray had attracted a sizable (pre-social media era) fan following. But when Holy Bull suffered a career-ending tendon strain during the running of the highly anticipated GI Donn H., it seemed as if his void would leave the sport without a star for some time to come.

Yet that ill-fated Gulfstream Park race, in retrospect, ended up signifying the passage of a torch: The then-unheralded horse who won the 1995 Donn was Cigar–who captivated the nation over the course of the next two seasons with a 16-race winning streak. During that time frame, the Cigar frenzy was fueled by offers of exorbitant bonus schemes and outlandish appearance fees that are now a bit more common when racetracks try to court the most highly hyped horses in America.

And when Cigar was defeated by a head by Skip Away in the 1996 GI Jockey Club Gold Cup, that too represented another torch passage, as Skip Away reigned supreme as the nation's most talented horse for the better part of the next three seasons.

That Holy Bull-Cigar-Skip Away troika spanned six solid years, and it's interesting to note that the shift away from that period of dominant older handicap horses (we don't even call them “handicap” horses these days, either) was replaced in terms of fan engagement by the maniacal spate of near-miss Triple Crown seasons that began from 1997 onward before American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) successfully outran history in 2015.