BELMONT STAKES UNDERCARD FEATURES THE MET MILE AND THE MANHATTAN

A nice sunny day at Belmont Park saw eight stakes races on the Belmont Stakes under card highlighted by the Met Mile and the Manhattan Stakes.The Met Mile featured a stellar field including dual Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow and eight other top contenders. Bob Baffert’s Mckinzie went off as the 6-4 favorite with Mike Smith aboard but the winner’s portion of the $1.3 million prize money went to MITOLE who went off at 7-2 and was winning his seventh race in a row. He held off the late charge of Mckinzie who had a very troubled trip and the valiant effort of Thunder Snow in third. The son of Eskenderaya is trained by Steve Asmussen and ridden by Ricardo Santana Jr.Formerly a front runner, Mitole lay second most of the race before taking the lead in the stretch and holding off all challengers. He now has eight wins from eleven lifetime starts with most of them coming at Oak lawn Park and is the early choice for Breeders Cup Dirt Mile.
The Manhattan Stakes on the turf featured the impressive BRICKS AND MORTAR who truly obliged at 4-5 odds confirming his status as the best turf horse in America. A patient ride from Irad Ortiz Jr resulted in an easy win going four wide in the stretch to run down Robert Bruce and Raging Bull. All three of course are trained by Chad Brown who was winning his fifth Manhattan with a horse who has overcome some serious injury. The winner who is a five year old son of Giant’s Causeway has now banked $4.3 million and his life time record is now nine wins from eleven starts. The bad news is that he is unlikely to go to the Breeders Cup in November due to distance limitations according to his trainer. I think he would beat the Europeans at their own game if he was given the chance but we will probably never know.