Dunkirk Possible For Belmont Stakes
Trainer Todd Pletcher said Saturday morning that Mrs. John Magnier’s Dunkirk, 11th in the Kentucky Derby, is under consideration for the 141st running of the Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 6.
“He is possible,” said Pletcher from his barn at Belmont Park. “We’ll make a determination after he breezes, which will probably be sometime next weekend.”
Unraced at two, the gray Unbridled’s Song colt won his first two starts at Gulfstream Park this year in impressive fashion, then finished second to Quality Road in the Grade 1 Florida Derby on March 28 before his run for the roses.
Pletcher also said that Michael Tabor’s Munnings, a $1.7 million purchase as a 2-year-old, was being pointed toward the Grade 2, $250,000 Woody Stephens for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs, also on Belmont Stakes Day.
Third in the 2008 Grade 1 Hopeful after stumbling badly at the break, Munnings was then second in the Grade 1 Champagne and closed out his 2-year-old campaign with an 10th place finish over an artificial surface in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita.
In his first start of 2009, he was second in a seven-furlong allowance at Churchill Downs on May 1.
Pletcher, the most recent trainer to saddle a filly to victory in a Triple Crown race, having won the 2007 Belmont Stakes with Rags to Riches, was intrigued by the possibility of Kentucky Oaks star Rachel Alexandra taking on colts in next Saturday’s Preakness Stakes, the second leg of racing’s Triple Crown.
“That filly has been most impressive,” said Pletcher, who is sending Take the Points to Pimlico. “It takes a special kind of filly to win one of the classics, and she looks like she is special.”