Jenny Kellner is an award-winning journalist and educator who has written about horse racing for more than 20 years. She has been a media specialist with NYRA for the past three years.
As I write this, the countdown clock on this website tells me there are 44 days, 3 hours and 12 minutes until the horses load into the gate for the 143rd running of the Belmont Stakes. It doesn’t seem like such a long time, but when you think that just 45 days ago Belmont Park looked like this …
.. you know a lot can happen. Last year at this time, Drosselmeyer was a relative unknown, boasting one maiden win, one allowance win, and a third-place finish in the Louisiana Derby, his only stakes start. Two years ago in April, Summer Bird had only a maiden win on his resume, as did Da’ Tara the previous year. And in late April of 2007, who would have thought a filly would set the “Test of the Champion” on its ear?
According to pundits, this year’s Kentucky Derby picture is as murky as it gets. With one hopeful after another stepping off the Derby trail, it seems to be anyone’s race and talk of a Triple Crown seems very premature, if not downright outlandish.
But this year, like every year, as racing returns to Belmont Park after another hard winter, we hope. Someone will win the Derby, and we hope it will be a horse good enough to win the Preakness, and we hope against hope there will be a horse great enough to join the ranks of Whirlaway and Seattle Slew and Gallant Fox and the eight others who swept the series.
Two days before the meet begins, the paddock at Belmont Park is empty save for the newly planted flowers and the great bronze statue of Secretariat. Thirty-eight years ago, Big Red broke a 25-year Triple Crown drought; today, that drought stretches back 33 years to Affirmed. But even as the workmen hustle to ready this great arena for opening day, Secretariat’s statue gleams anew under a warm spring sun, the rigors of the winter buffed away as he stands silently, a reminder of the glory that awaits the next champion.
There is only one Belmont Stakes. And there is only one Nick Zito. And they go together like, well, pizza and New York. As Zito himself said when asked why he wanted Super Saver to win the Preakness: “Well, No. 1, Todd is from Dallas and I don’t think he knows much about pizza.”
Or, as he put it another way: “New York is America.”
Those who were around for trainer Woody Stephens’ five straight Belmont victories may find it a bit presumptuous to call Zito “Mr. Belmont,” even though he’s twice won the “Test of the Champion” and has saddled more Belmont starters than any other trainer in history (22 not including tomorrow).
Not me. When Zito leads Ice Box and Fly Down over for tomorrow’s Belmont Stakes, I bet there will be as many people rooting for the Brooklyn-born Zito as there will be for his two wonderful horses. Sure, there’s another white-haired Hall of Fame trainer in the race, but it’s Zito who belongs to Belmont Park, to New York.
It would be only fitting were he, the quintessential New York trainer, to win the quintessential New York race.
Right or wrong?
OK, I admit it. I’m a sucker for really tall horses. You know, the ones that look like they could play center for the Knicks, who could use one. Actually, the Knicks need a lot more than a center, but that’s another blog.
Maybe it started with Forego, I don’t remember, but now, whenever I see one of those 17-hands-plus monsters, my eyes glaze over and all reason flies out the window. Long Trek, Point Given, Midnight Lute, Zenyatta, Timber Reserve, they all make the Tall Hall of Fame.
Which brings us to the latest addition: Belmont Stakes hopeful First Dude.
I was prepared not to like First Dude, who is out of the mare Run Sarah Run and named after Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, the former First Dude of Alaska. Therein lies reason enough to root against him, at least for me, but one look at First Dude dragging his diminutive exercise rider, Tammy Fox, around the grazing area, and he moved right to the top of the list.
What sealed the deal was his personality. For a horse who bears a striking resemblance to a brontosaurus, he has a completely endearing way about him, as evidenced by the no less than 15 times he stopped on his way to the track this morning to strike a pose for all the photographers and videographers who were trailing along in his wake.
“He’s a ham,” explained Fox.
Yeah – a big one.
So, in one corner you have Preakness runner-up First Dude, who indeed is named after the First Dude himself, Todd Palin.First Dude Palin is a four-time winner of the Iron Dog competition, a 1,971 mile (!) snowmobile race in Alaska. Palin is known as a superb navigator in the snowy wilderness, and we trust this means his namesake will have no trouble navigating “The Big Sandy.”
And in the other corner you have Lone Star Derby winner Game On Dude, simply referred to around the barn as “The Dude,” famously played by Jeff Bridges in “The Big Lebowski.”
Not surprisingly, this has led some people to starting calling the Belmont Stakes the “Battle of the Dudes.”
Whoa.
But most of these people aren’t from around here, and they are forgetting something very very important. (And no, it’s not where they left their car).
Seriously, in New York, there is only ONE dude.
Go on. Make his day.
