There are no changes in positions three through eight: Blame (127), Rachel Alexandra (119), Lookin At Lucky (97), Rail Trip (61), Misremembered (48) and Super Saver (44).

Exchanging positions are Tuscan Evening and Blind Luck. Tuscan Evening jumps from 10th to ninth with 34 points and Blind Luck falls one spot with 29 points.

Although no race has been confirmed, trainer D. Wayne Lukas is actively preparing 2009 Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird for the gelding’s first start of the year. The four-year-old had a six- furlong workout Tuesday morning at Churchill Downs.

“I am not sure where we’ll go,” Lukas said. “He is nominated to the Salvatore Mile (July 3 at Monmouth Park), which is a nice option. He is nominated to everything but the Tokyo Fair. Our goal is the Whitney (August 7 at Saratoga). We are going to dive right into the deep end.”

Owned by Double Eagle Ranch and Buena Suerte Equine, Mine That Bird breezed three-quarters of a mile in 1:13 with Calvin Borel riding. This was the fifth work for the gelding since being transferred to Lukas. Mine That Bird galloped out seven-furlongs in 1:27 1/5.

“When they started training horses 300 years ago, this is what they had in mind,” Lukas noted. “His last quarter was in 23 and 2 and his last eighth, it had to be 11 and change. He was flying.”

Mine That Bird last raced in the Breeders’ Cup Classic last November when he was ninth to Zenyatta. The four-year-old’s last win was the Run for the Roses on May 2, 2009.
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by Brian Zipse (ZATT)

Like a shot he is off. And then, he is gone again. Blink your eyes and you may miss him. I was able to catch a glimpse of him on Preakness Day, mind you, it was only a glimpse.

“Who was that horse?” I heard someone say as he rolled by.

He has been lighting up tracks both day and night since his debut last September, zipping through sophomore stakes as if they are his own personal playgrounds. Some lucky fans in West Virginia were lucky enough to see him on Saturday night. If only briefly.

The horse is Comedero, and he has done it again, routing six rivals in the $400,000 Red Legend Stakes on Saturday at Charles Town Races & Slots.
“This could be the best three-year-old in the country!“ exclaimed Charles Town track announcer, Jeff Cernik, as Comedero opened up by eight or nine lengths early in the lane.

Strong words probably, but it is becoming more doubtful that anyone in this crop can stay with him at least for the first six panels. Comedero has romped home in each of his five starts this year, all of them stakes, and with a combined winning margin of just about 30 lengths.

Surely that number would be higher if not for jockey Robby Albarado gearing him down late in the Red Legend score.

Comedero, was sent straight to the front in the richest sprint race for three-year-olds. He raced unopposed as he lengthened his lead with disdainful ease. The huge margin allowed Albarado to peek back, and wrap up his charge well before the wire. Final margin over Mylilsecret was 2 ¼ lengths, but it no doubt could have been much larger.

Coming off a win in the Grade 3 Chick Lang Stakes at Pimlico most recently, the bay gelding, in the pink silks, improved his career record to eight wins out of nine races, with his only coming in a poor effort at the extended distance of a mile at Remington Park as a juvenile.

He has already surpassed half a million in earnings. In each of those eight wins, no horse has been able to come close to Comedero in the stretch. The fleet Arkansas-bred is a son of Posse and Pawnee Patti, by Sir Richard Lewis. He has now won seven stakes, including tow at Charles Town, where he had previously accounted tor the Blue and Gold Stakes by nine lengths April 17.

Seeing Comedero become this good can be no surprise. After all he was bred in the Thoroughbred hotbed of Arkansas and has exclusively run in all the big race states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Maryland. I kid of course, these are not places that we usually expect champions, but a champion sprinter is what Comedero may very well become. Time to bring on the big boys.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (June 13, 2010)-With a powerful closing kick she has never failed to deliver, Zenyatta remained perfect, running her way into history with a thrilling victory over St Trinians and four others in the $250,000 Vanity Handicap on Sunday at Hollywood Park.

The win was the 17th in a row for the 6-year-old daughter of Street Cry and the Kris S. mare Vertingineux, enabling her to surpass Cigar, Citation and Mister Frisky for the longest win streak by a modern day thoroughbred in races not restricted to state breds.

She also became the first three time winner of the Vanity, a Grade 1 which was run for the 69th time Sunday.

Owned by Jerry and Ann Moss and trained by John Shirreffs, who has won the Vanity a record five times, Zenyatta, the 1-2 favorite, was able to overtake a gallant St Trinians in the closing yards. The half-length win, accomplished in 1:49.01 for the 1 1/8 miles, increased Zenyatta’s earnings to $6,074,580.

Spotting the runner-up nine pounds as she carried the same 129 she did in last year’s Vanity, Zenyatta trailed for more than two-thirds of the race, came widest of all into the stretch, then had to run down St Trinians, who had gotten the jump on the two-time older female champion.

With about a sixteenth of a mile to go, it appeared Zenyatta’s streak could be in jeopardy, but she was able to do what she’s always done since beginning her career with a maiden victory at Hollywood Park on Nov. 22, 2007. She is 7-for-7 at the track she calls home.

Returning to loud cheers and applause from the 12,232 on hand, Mike Smith, who has been aboard for 14 of Zenyatta’s victories, acknowledged the excited crowd.

“It’s just incredible,’’ said Smith after his fifth win in the race. “It was a great, great race. It was a gallant effort on St Trinians part. She really ran huge.

“When we headed for home, I hit a real big gear and she hit another one right back at me and I said, ‘Whoa, she’s serious, she’s going to make me run.’ I was working at it until the last hundred yards and then I knew I would out grind her.’’

Jerry Moss believed Zenyatta would stay unblemished while watching the Vanity unfold.

“I had a feeling she was going to make it somehow like she always does, ever since she caught Anabaa’s Creation in that race at Del Mar (the 2009 Clement L. Hirsch where Zenyatta won by a head).

“She won, she got there, she gave away the nine pounds and she came about seven wide. She’s just awesome. What can I say. The reaction of the crowd was amazing. She’s such a fan pleaser. Everybody here loves her.’’

Shirreffs, who has accumulated his Vanity victories since 1999, was a little concerned entering Sunday’s race due to Zenyatta’s last two works not going exactly the way he had wanted.

“Her last couple of works were a little on the slow side, so we were kind of concerned about that,’’ he said. “She was always finishing well in her works, they just didn’t set up the way we wanted in the morning. When it’s done perfectly, you say, ‘OK, that’s done, we’ve taken care of that and we go on to something else,’ but when you can’t completely close the book it leaves some uncertainty.’’

Making her first appearance since finishing sixth as the 3-1 favorite in the Santa Anita Handicap on March 6, St Trinians and new rider Martin Garcia took over the lead with about an eighth of a mile to run and had 2 ½ lengths on Zenyatta, but couldn’t quite stay.

Losing for the first time in five races against females in the United States, St Trinians finished six lengths clear of Zardana, who is also trained by Shirreffs.

Will O Way finished fourth, 6 ¼ lengths behind Zardana, then came Miss Silver Brook and Cherryblossommiss, who battled for the lead through the first six furlongs.

“I thought I had her just the way I wanted her and I knew John had his mare just the way he wanted her,’’ said Mike Mitchell, the trainer of St Trinians. “It was a good horse race. What can you say.

“I wanted to be a little farther in front of her turning for home because I know the kick that Zenyatta’s got. My mare has a big kick, too. She just got outrun. I’m happy. I just wanted it to be a good race. We’re all big fans of Zenyatta in my family. I know that (St Trinians) didn’t shame herself.’’

Garcia was certainly impressed by the first two finishers.

“I don’t know what to say,’’ he said. “I can’t say anything right now. I couldn’t have asked her for any more. The other mare is just too much horse. But mine is too.’’

In winning her seventh consecutive Grade 1, Zenyatta paid $3.00 and $2.10. There was no show wagering. The place price on St Trinians was $2.20.

After Belmont Stakes morning-line favorite Ice Box and stablemate Fly Down schooled in the gate and galloped this morning, Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito was asked if his late closers would be closer to the pace in Saturday’s 1½-mile race.

“It depends,” said Zito. “Obviously, Ice Box has a great kick. I don’t want to do anything to compromise his style of running. I’ve seen that before, changing styles, and it never works. Never, never, never. I hope he gets in position where he can run his race; that’s all we can hope for. And, basically, he and Fly Down are the same type of horse.

“I guess everyone is going to pay attention to First Dude,” he added. “He’s got a good post [11] because he’ll probably try and gallop out there. But I wouldn’t change my horses’ styles. I just hope my horses run the same way they have been.”

As First Dude galloped around Belmont Park’s 1½-mile oval, trainer Dale Romans did nothing to refute the perception his horse is going to the front on Saturday.

“We’re definitely going to be on, or close, to the lead,” he said. “If someone wants to get out of their game and set him down inside of us, we’ll let him go and sit right off.

“This horse doesn’t have to be on the lead. If they let him get three-quarters in 1:14 like Seattle Slew, he’ll be tough to catch. I don’t think there’s anyone in there that wants to sacrifice themselves and get out of their game and go chase him.”

Interactif will break from the far outside in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, which could give his rider Javier Castellano options on where to place the Wertheimer and Frere homebred in the field of 12.

“It’s a 1½-mile race, and there’s an eighth of a mile run into the first turn,” his trainer Todd Pletcher said. “We’ll have to secure some kind of position. On paper, First Dude (post 11) is the speed, so we hope we can just follow him over. Or maybe we’ll just go to the lead.”

Kiaran McLaughlin coveted Uptowncharlybrown since seeing the colt win his first two races by a combined 15 lengths at Tampa Bay Downs. The trainer, however, had no desire to take charge under the subsequent circumstances — the sudden death of his friend, Alan Seewald, on April 12.

“I had offered to buy the horse through Alan Seewald after his first two races,” McLaughlin said Friday morning at his Belmont barn. “I thought he might be a good 3-year-old, maybe a Derby horse.”

Seewald, the long-time New Jersey-based conditioner, had purchased Uptowncharlybrown out of an Ocala 2-year-olds in training sale in April 2009 and run him four times at Tampa, culminating with a close-up fifth-place finish in the Tampa Bay Derby in which the colt was crowded much of the race.

Five days after Seewald died on April 12, Uptowncharlybrown ran third in an emotional Lexington Stakes at Keeneland, saddled by Seewald’s assistant trainer, Linda White.

All of Seewald’s horses with Fantasy Lane Stable were turned over to White, but McLaughlin said a mutual friend of him and the stable’s manager, Bob Hutt, suggested he call about Uptowncharlybrown.

“Being that I did make an offer on this horse might have helped me get him,” McLaughlin said.

The connections, however, were even closer: Althea Roy, the girlfriend of McLaughlin’s assistant, Art Magnuson, is best friends with White and helped her saddle Uptowncharlybrown at Keeneland.

McLaughlin said he paid close attention to the race, in which Uptowncharlybrown had a slow start but was closing fast at the finish.

“I liked what I saw,” McLaughlin said. “He was the best horse making up a lot of ground, flying late. I was in the race with my own horse, Krypton.”

McLaughlin, who won the Belmont in 2006 with Jazil and finished fourth last year with Charitable Man, said he wished the race wasn’t his first with Uptowncharlybrown, “so I’d learn a little from a race with him. But we’re ready to go, and I think we’ll get the distance.”

Trainer Michael Maker sat serenely is his barn office Friday morning while Tom Conway, the co-owner of his Belmont entry Stately Victor, relaxed outside, catching some morning sun.

“Everything went according to schedule, and he’s done everything we’ve asked,” Maker said of the Blue Grass winner’s preparation for the final leg of the Triple Crown. “You couldn’t ask for more than that.”

Conway owns the colt, a son of Ghostzapper, with his son, Jack, the Kentucky attorney general who recently won a pretty big race himself — the Democratic primary in that state May 18 for a U.S. Senate seat.

Tom Conway said he had been in town since Tuesday and marveled repeatedly at Belmont Park’s beauty and grandeur. “I love it here,” he said.

Son Jack, however, is yet to make it out to the track. “He’s in New York raising money,” Tom Conway said.

Alan Garcia rides Stately Victor, 15-1 in the morning line, and Maker said he has no plans to offer instructions. The jockey first took the colt’s reins at Keeneland and won the Blue Grass at 40-1. In their next outing, Garcia and Stately Victor finished eighth in the Kentucky Derby after a bumpy journey.

“Alan knows the horse, and there’s nothing we could tell him he doesn’t already know,” Maker said.

When Joel Rosario rides Make Music for Me in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, it will be the first time the 22-year-old jockey has competed over Belmont’s expansive 1½-mile main track.

Trainer Alexis Barba is unconcerned.

“This kid is going to be a superstar,” Barba said of Rosario.

Rosario and Make Music for Me closed from last of 20 to finish fourth at 30-1 in the Kentucky Derby. On Saturday, Rosario has one other scheduled mount at Belmont Park, as he is named on Kells Blues in the third race, a maiden event on the Widener turf course.

Rosario, who rides year-round in Southern California, is currently third in the jockey standings at Hollywood Park and was the second-leading rider at Santa Anita during the meet that concluded in April.

Horses rarely race 1½ miles on the dirt, but WinStar racing manager Elliott Walden – who saddled Victory Gallop to a Belmont Stakes win in 1998 – has been waiting for the opportunity to stretch Drosselmeyer out.

“We’re really excited about the mile and a half,” Walden said of Drosselmeyer, who is trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott. “We wanted to get past the mile and an eighth threshold for a few months. We were hoping it was going to happen in the Kentucky Derby, and it didn’t, so we’re real excited about the Belmont.”

To Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, it’s simple.

“Either you can go that far, or you can’t go that far,” he said after Belmont contender Game On Dude galloped Friday. “You can’t get fit in a few days. I just want to keep him happy and fresh.”

Baffert said he is pleased with the way Game On Dude has progressed in the weeks he’s had him.

“He’s a very laid-back horse. He’s got a good mind. He’s very plain. But he’s matured since I’ve had him, and, he gets over this track really well. It only took him one time around to get used to it.”

Belmont long shot Stay Put galloped 1½ miles on the main track Friday morning in preparation for the Belmont Stakes. Jockey Jamie Theriot, who has ridden the homebred colt, owned by Bertram, Elaine and Richard Klein, in each of his seven races, will arrive Saturday morning, trainer Steve Margolis said.

“We will talk tomorrow,” Margolis said. “Everything went well this morning, and we’re excited and looking forward to it very much. We haven’t plotted out the strategy, and we’ll see what the weather looks like and figure out what we want to do.”

Stay Put finished a close-up fifth in his two stakes tries and comes off an allowance victory at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day.

John Sadler, trainer of Dave in Dixie, was scheduled to arrive in New York at 5 p.m. on Friday.

There is no other race Larry Roman would rather win than the Belmont, and the owner believes his entrant Spangled Star could have a pedigree edge over his 11 opponents.

Roman noted how his long shot colt has the highest Tomlinson pedigree rating (386) for the 1½-mile distance in this year’s Belmont field, but he also knows genetics are often inexact science.

“My mother was beautiful and my father was handsome, and look at how I turned out,” quipped Roman.

Spangled Star is by Distorted Humor, the sire of Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Funny Cide. His dam Spangled won twice going 1 1/8 miles on the turf and is by Kris S., a notable stamina influence. The horse with the second highest Tomlinson in the field is First Dude with a 352.

Roman, a graduate of nearby Hofstra University, will be accompanied by 16 guests on Saturday.

By David Grening
ELMONT, N.Y. — Belmont Week dawned Monday with a late addition to bring the field to 12, and several horses who turned in sharp final workouts, one of whom gave no indication that a foot problem he is nursing will compromise his chances come post time Saturday for the 142nd Belmont Stakes.

Drosselmeyer looked well working on Monday morning at Belmont Park, breezing five furlongs in 59.60 seconds, according to Daily Racing Form, while easily disposing of his workmate, and his chestnut coat glistened like a copper penny when back at the barn of his trainer, Bill Mott. But also glistening were the bar shoes on his front hooves that were noticeable while he bathed and then grazed.

Mott said that Drosselmeyer bruised the frogs – the fleshy shock absorbers on the soles of the feet — sometime after his runner-up finish in the Dwyer Stakes on May 8. He said the problem was noticed late last week, and that bar shoes were added Saturday. But he said Drosselmeyer will not race in the bar shoes in the Belmont Stakes.

“We didn’t think three or four days ago that he looked comfortable galloping,” Mott said. After adding the shoes on Saturday, “we galloped him on Sunday, and then worked today,” Mott said.

“That’s one of the reasons we waited a day to work him; we wanted to gallop him in the shoes first,” said Mott, who said Drosselmeyer would have conventional racing shoes for the Belmont Stakes.

“This is something that sometimes happens because of the sand here at Belmont,” Mott said. “There’s a light aluminum pad across the frog of the foot. We just have to protect it. It will toughen up on its own.”

Mott said Drosselmeyer also was standing in salt water and Epsom salts “a couple of times a day.”

Based on the way Drosselmeyer worked, this development should not impact his performance come Saturday in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont. Drosselmeyer, with exercise rider Juan Quintero aboard, started five lengths behind barnmate Vision d’Amour when they broke off at the five-furlong pole, but within three-sixteenths of a mile, he was just a length behind. Drosselmeyer pulled away through the stretch to be best by three lengths,
then galloped out well. The time was the best of 12 at the distance.

“We wanted a decent sort of work,” Mott said. “He worked good, galloped out good. I wasn’t disappointed that it was too fast. At least not to this point. If he’s meant to be a good horse, it shouldn’t bother him.”

Drosselmeyer races for the WinStar Farm of Bill Casner and Kenny Troutt. In the Kentucky Derby, they were aligned with trainer Todd Pletcher, and together they won with Super Saver. In the Belmont, though, they will be on opposing teams. Mott trains Drosselmeyer, and Pletcher on Monday decided to run Interactif, who brings the prospective Belmont field to 12.

“He’s been training really well on the dirt here,” Pletcher said at his barn. “His work two back was really good, with a strong gallop out, and then he came back with another big work on Saturday,” he said, referring to a five-furlong drill in 1:00.41.

“I talked to the owners this morning, and we decided to give it a shot,” Pletcher said.

Interactif is owned by Alain and Gerard Wertheimer of France. The Wertheimer brothers originally had been pointing their colt Setsuko, trained by Richard Mandella, to the Belmont, but Setsuko was not training satisfactorily in California and was pulled from consideration more than a week ago.

Javier Castellano will ride Interactif, who has not raced since finishing fourth in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 10. Interactif primarily has raced on grass and synthetic surfaces during his eight-race career, including a second-place finish in the San Felipe at Santa Anita earlier this year. But he has raced twice on dirt, including when winning first time out at Monmouth. He is by Broken Vow, a son of Unbridled, and is out of a Broad Brush mare.

“He’s got a stout pedigree,” Pletcher said. “With the complexion of the race, it looks like the right time to take a shot.”

The last time Pletcher called a late audible for the Belmont was in 2007, when he decided the week of the race to run the filly Rags To Riches against Curlin and Hard Spun. She won.

Entries for the Belmont are due on Wednesday morning, and post positions will be drawn shortly after 11 a.m that day. Eric Donovan, who makes the morning line at Belmont Park, on Monday said that Ice Box, the second-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, will be favored over First Dude, the Preakness runner-up, and Fly Down, the Dwyer winner.

Three other Belmont runners worked on Monday, two at Belmont Park.

Stately Victor, who won the Blue Grass while beating Interactif by 6 3/4 lengths, covered a half-mile in 49.93 seconds for trainer Mike Maker. Stately Victor finished eighth in the Kentucky Derby in his last start.

Both Drosselmeyer and Stately Victor worked on the main track, but trainer Alexis Barba elected to take Make Music for Me to the training track for his final breeze, a five-furlong move that Daily Racing Form caught in 1:01.21, the fastest of 10 at the distance. Exercise rider Andy Durnin was aboard.

Barba said she went to the training track because Make Music for Me seemed to be getting bored with the large size and relative calm surroundings of the main track in recent days.

“He was a little more keen today,” she said.

In California, Game On Dude worked out of the gate at Santa Anita and was credited with a six-furlong time of 1:12.40. He is scheduled to fly here on Wednesday. Game On Dude, trained by Bob Baffert, won the Lone Star Derby in his last start.

It was a warm morning at Belmont Park, with temperatures near 80 before noon, and it is expected to stay hot most of the week. According to Weather.com, there was an 80 percent chance of thunderstorms on Tuesday night, followed by high temperatures in the mid-80s in the middle of the week. There is a 50 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms on Friday, but the outlook for Saturday, at this point, is encouraging, a high of 82 degrees but little chance of rain.

NEW YORK — With no Triple Crown on the line, not to mention a Kentucky Derby or Preakness winner in the field, the 142nd running of the Belmont Stakes could still turn out to be a starting point for a championship season.

Summer Bird came out of nowhere last year and won the Belmont with a thrilling stretch run, then won the Travers and the Jockey Club Gold Cup en route to being voted a champion 3-year-old.

A similar scenario is possible, beginning with next Saturday’s $1 million Belmont.

Sure, star power may be absent with Derby winner Super Saver and Preakness winner Lookin At Lucky sitting this one out, and attendance and TV ratings could suffer. But the runner-ups from both races — Ice Box in the Derby, First Dude in the Preakness — could be rising stars, along with Fly Down, an impressive winner of the Dwyer Stakes at Belmont Park earlier this month.

“Although it lacks a big name as we sit here in late May, I think it’s going to be a very competitive race, a good betting race,” says Charles Hayward, president and CEO of the New York Racing Association, which operates Belmont, Saratoga Race Course, and Aqueduct Racetrack.

“You’re going to have some really quality runners that are going to do some good things the rest of the year. It’s a bigger spectacle when we’ve got a horse running for the Triple Crown, but we don’t have that this year.”

Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin says the main concern is winning the Belmont, not who’s in and who’s out.

“The bookkeeper still pays you the same, and it’s still an American Classic and a Grade 1,” says McLaughlin, who sends out Uptowncharlybrown in the Belmont. “And we don’t mind if the Derby winner and the Preakness winner are not in there. It makes it a little bit easier, and we’re happy about that.”

McLaughlin was the beneficiary of the last no Derby-no Preakness winner in the Belmont, winning the 2006 race with Jazil.

Dale Romans, who trains First Dude, doesn’t blame racing fans for wanting the Triple Crown races to have the best of the best.

“It would be nice to see one or both of the horses show up and take them on, but the Belmont is still a good race,” says Romans. “I’m sure we’ll hook up with the Derby winner and the Preakness winner down the road.”

Until then, it looks like a field of 11 3-year-olds will be entered for the 1½-mile Belmont, the longest and most grueling of the Triple Crown races.

Others expected to be entered Wednesday are Lone Star Derby winner Game On Dude, Blue Grass winner Stately Victor, Dave in Dixie, Drosselmeyer, Make Music for Me, Spangled Star and Stay Put.

Florida Derby winner Ice Box and Fly Down are both trained by Hall of Famer Nick Zito, who has won two of the past six Belmonts — with Birdstone in 2004 and Da’ Tara in 2008.

Zito would never consider this a buzzless Belmont.

“Right now, everything is positive and we want to keep it that way,” Zito said from Saratoga, where his colts are training until being shipped to Belmont on Wednesday.

Once again, though, the Belmont is left without a high-profile story line: There’s no Triple Crown try for the fifth time in the past six years; there’s no filly taking on the boys as Rags to Riches did in winning in 2007; and there’s no Derby winner vs. Preakness winner as in Giacomo vs. Afleet Alex in 2005. The race known as the “Test of the Champion” will be run for the third time since 1970 without the Derby and/or the Preakness winners.

Nonetheless, Romans says, “It’s a quality group of horses doing well right now. You’ll see them between now and the end of the year go on and win a lot of big races.”

Although Ice Box finished 2½ lengths behind Super Saver in the Derby, the chestnut colt may have been the best horse in the race. Despite a troubled trip in which he was blocked and forced to check, he came barreling down the stretch with a full head of steam to finish second.

Fly Down, who has beaten First Dude twice, produced an eye-opening effort in pulling away from favorite Drosselmeyer in the Dwyer.

Dave in Dixie is the latest addition to the field, and the rider will be Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel. A year ago, Borel fell short on his victory guarantee aboard Mine That Bird, who finished third.

The Belmont also comes at a time when racing in New York is on shaky financial footing.

Earlier this week, the state legislature approved a $25 million loan to NYRA as part of an emergency budget appropriation.

The deal came a few days after the association disclosed that it was considering closing the tracks on June 9.

The loan, said NYRA chairman Steve Duncker, “guarantees world-class thoroughbred racing” at the three tracks.

NYRA is still owed more than $17 million by New York City Off-Track Betting Corp., which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.

Hayward said he’s “cautiously optimistic” about New York’s racing future, but will turn his attention to coming up with the Belmont winner.

“I try to look at this race as a handicapper rather than a track president,” says Hayward.

Garcia piloted Stately Victor to his improbable 40-1 win in the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland April 10, as well as an eighth-place finish in the May 1 Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I). In 2008, he rode longshot Da’ Tara to victory in the Belmont
Arriving on the same flight as Stately Victor was Stay Put, who also appears to be acclimating to his new surroundings, trainer Steve Margolis said by phone from Kentucky.
“He shipped well and he’s getting settled,” said Margolis, who trains Stay Put for Richard, Bertram, and Elaine Klein. “He came up with my longtime assistant Loren Diego, who rides him in the mornings. He’ll gallop tomorrow after the break, then work a half-mile and gallop out five-eighths first thing after the break on Sunday.”
Stay Put enters the Belmont off an allowance victory on the Kentucky Derby undercard at Churchill Downs. All three of the Broken Vow colt’s wins have come around two turns.
Margolis said he would join the horse June 1, arriving in time for training hours.
In addition to Stay Put, a number of other Belmont Stakes hopefuls are scheduled to have their final serious works for the race over the holiday weekend.
Preakness runner-up First Dude will go out May 29 on the main track following the renovation break, with trainer Dale Romans in attendance. Uptowncharlybrown, third in the Lexington Stakes (gr. II) in his most recent start, is also slated to go on the main track after the break, said trainer Kiaran McLaughlin.
Dwyer Stakes runner-up Drosselmeyer will likely work May 30, said trainer Bill Mott, as will Make Music for Me, fourth in the Kentucky Derby.
At Saratoga, Dwyer Stakes winner Fly Down will breeze May 31 or June 1 before shipping down with stablemate and likely Belmont favorite Ice Box on June 2.