Notebook: Belmont Stakes Race Day

ELMONT, N.Y. – Animal Kingdom galloped on the backstretch of the track behind two horses Thursday, a tactic his trainers said helps him focus.

“He’d see horses want to pull up and he’d want to also,” said assistant trainer John Panagot in a release. “He’s pretty intelligent and sees this is where they stop, and he wants to stop.”

Animal Kingdom, owned in part by Madison residents Tom and Julie Furey who are members of the Team Valor partnership, took an easy gallop on Friday morning as well.

Along with Mucho Macho Man, Animal Kingdom and Shackleford are the only other horses that ran in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness this year and both won each of those races, respectively.

Mucho Macho Man set and ready

Part owner Dan Reeves came to the barn at Belmont Race Track Thursday afternoon to support Mucho Macho Man.

“We think we have the best horse in the country,” he said a day earlier at the draw breakfast held in Elmont. “He needs to prove it. I don’t know if it’s this week, but he will prove it.”

Mucho Macho Man finished third in the Kentucky Derby and sixth in the Preakness Stakes. On Thursday the colt ran a light one-mile clockwise gallop with trainer Kathy Ritvo.

Shackleford anticipating different race

Shackleford finished fourth in the Kentucky Derby and won the Preakness, but his trainer Dale Romans sees Belmont as a different race all together compared to the other Triple Crown legs.

“We may have gone too slow in the Derby, because everyone came home so fast and we couldn’t hang on,” he said, in a statement, of that race, in which Shackleford led through an opening half-mile in :48 3/5 and three-quarters in 1:13 2/5. “The Preakness was different [opening half in :46 4/5] and they struggled a little bit at the end, and we had the stamina to finish.” 

Stay tuned for coverage from Belmont Saturday evening.