Borel at Belmont: Blackball by default

Many observers, myself included, were critical of jockey Calvin Borel -- in print or otherwise -- for having no mounts during Belmont Stakes week and trying to win the third leg of the Triple Crown on Mine That Bird with very little experience traversing "Big Sandy."

Today Steve Haskin of The Blood-Horse reports that the decision wasn't Borel's. Haskin says he's been told nobody would give Borel a mount during the week at Belmont save one trainer, and that Borel was advised to take off that horse. (I believe I've heard elsewhere that lone ride was to be on the turf course, anyway.)

Calvin Borel is such a kind man that it isn't surprising, I guess, that he would deflect all criticism of his lack of mounts during Belmont week by good-naturedly saying it didn't really make a difference; that like all races, you just "break ... and turn left." It likely did make a difference -- Big Sandy and the Belmont aboard a keyed-up horse have been the undoing of more famed jockeys than he -- but if he tried and couldn't get mounts, what was he to do? Call the whole Belmont trainer colony everything but sons of God?

I don't really know what to make of a situation in which the hottest jockey in America can't get a ride for a week. On the one hand, you'd think somebody -- some little barn with a handful of horses, typically stuck hiring bug-boys and second-tier NY-circuit veterans -- would hand him the reins for a race or two during the week. Even if Borel wasn't aboard a winner, he'd get the feel for just how expansive that turn for home and how long the final stretch are; how you can't go as early as your instincts make you think.

(Haskin doesn't think Borel moved to soon aboard Mine That Bird; I still do. The outside trip might have cost him even more, and maybe Borel just couldn't hold back an uncharacteristically rank horse, but Mine That bird used too much energy, too soon.)

On the other hand, if you're a New York trainer of any stature, top-rung or bottom, what's really to be gained by naming Borel to a half-dozen mounts during Belmont week? Why break commitments and risk fracturing relationships with local jockeys for a rider, Borel, who almost certainly won't be there to ride your horse back the next time he runs?

It isn't your job to get the guy ready to run the Belmont. It's your job to win today, tomorrow and next week and next month with your owners' horses. Even if Borel wins on your horse, you can only say you've benefited if it seemed there was little chance of that horse winning without Calvin Borel. At Churchill Downs that happens almost every day; at Belmont Park, you probably have just as good a shot with any of a dozen other, more familiar, guys or gals in the irons.

There'd need to be some compelling reason to ride Borel instead of your regular guy, or even in the case of a horse that hasn't established a good working relationship with a jockey yet. You might do it if Borel was there to ride a friend's horse in the Belmont; a fellow trainer with whom you've had an on- and off-track friendship for a decade all around the Northeast. Or if it's realistic that you might have a horse in a nice race at Churchill someday and could want Borel in the irons for that one. Or even if the owner of Borel's horse is someone with whom you'd like to earn points, so that you might train some of his horses in the future.

It's likely none of that's the case with Belmont's trainer colony and Mine That Bird.

This might be a product, then, of a formerly obscure horse with perhaps destined to again be obscure connections in owners Double Eagle Ranch (Mark Allen) and Buena Suerte Equine, and trainer Bennie Woolley Jr. What's a Belmont-based trainer to think of collaborating with them?

They're the Sunland Park crowd; New Mexico guys. Mark Allen, despite his oil-business money, will likely never have a substantial string at Belmont and consider you as the trainer. And Woolley -- personable though he seems to be in horse circles -- is someone you just met; you owe him no return of a former favor and it's unlikely he'd ever be in a position to repay your favor of putting Borel aboard a long-shot in the fifth on Belmont Friday. Legging-up Borel would be a courtesy from which you'd not be expecting ever to benefit directly; nothing but "a kindness," as we say in the South.

I mean, follow the links ... there's probably an explanation behind why the NTRA has mugshots but still no bios on these men, nearly six weeks after their horse won the biggest race in America, the Kentucky Derby. Aside from Mine That Bird, nobody in racing's upper echelon is really expecting to hear from these guys again.

So in a game that's all about gaining and exploiting advantages -- not just from gate to wire, but from the sales, to morning workouts, to the entry box, to the saddling enclosure, to post-parade, to gate, to wire -- there was almost nothing to be gained for any Belmont trainer to put Calvin Borel on horses during Belmont week.

Call it a "blackball by default," perhaps.

There might have been some New York allegiances involved -- trainers who'd rather see a jockey or conditioner from the Belmont colony win the Belmont Stakes, rather than these upstarts in cowboy boots and their sudden-celebrity jockey. Or even some jealousy among NY-circuit jockeys and trainers watching this Louisiana middle-school dropout from Churchill breeze into the Big Apple and appear on late-night TV as a guest of David Letterman.

But there didn't need to be any animosity at all for the same net result to occur: No rides for Borel to prep his skills for the Belmont.

It's tough for the guy, for his horse, and for the connections. And it makes you admire Calvin Borel all the more that he had the good spirits and grace to smile through defeat and never utter a harsh word -- knowing he and the horse had tried their best when nobody would do him a favor all week in New York.

No "kindness" for the kindest jockey in America. That is a little bit sad, isn't it?

As Rachel waits, Derby winner dangles

Here we are, less than a week from the Belmont Stakes draw, with no commitment made from the Rachel Alexandra camp about whether the phenomenal filly will be present for a rematch with Derby winner Mine That Bird, whom she bested in the Preakness.

The Blood-Horse's Steve Haskin muses about why that might be, and speculates -- I think correctly -- that Rachel's connections, including Jess Jackson's Stonestreet Stable, have to be at least 90 percent certain by now about what they're going to do. But Haskin notes that Jackson has given conflicting signals, including statements that they'd know by last Monday whether Rachel was ready; now we'll know by this coming Monday, which for a mid-week draw and Saturday race is pretty much go-time.

Haskin writes that a decision on Monday is cutting it awfully close, and "leaves the NYRA marketing department up the proverbial creek without a paddle."

There's somebody else Jackson has left in a holding pattern: Mine That Bird.

By now I'm leaning heavily toward the notion that Rachel Alexandra won't run in the Belmont Stakes. My desire for a rematch aside, I think if she were my filly I wouldn't consider it the right spot for her.

Rachel opting out would leave her regular rider, Calvin Borel, free to reclaim the mount aboard Mine That Bird, a job he gave up when both horses were entered in the Preakness. Mike Smith rode Mine That Bird to second in that race, but has taken off the horse to stay out west next weekend and ride Madeo, a Jerry and Ann Moss horse, in the Grade 1 Charles Whittingham Memorial at Hollywood Park the same afternoon. Mine That Bird's trainer, Bennie Woolley Jr., has decided he'll wait and see whether Borel is available, and that means waiting out Jackson's decision on Rachel's Belmont future. Borel has even worked Woolley's horse in the interim.

I think Jackson might be tickled to make them sweat. After all, Mine That Bird's owner, Mark Allen, stuck Jackson and Co. in the sauna for a day when he, Ahmed Zayat and perhaps others gave serious consideration to blocking Rachel Alexandra from the Preakness by entering enough nominated, but undeserving, colts. All Jackson could do was dab at his brow for hours, until the Derby winner's connections and Zayat publicly changed their minds.

The Belmont-decision delay might just be Jackson's chance at a little turnabout. You made me wait and see whether my horse would run at Pimlico; I'll make you wait and see whether you get your jockey back for Belmont.

If so, that's the stuff good rivalries are made of.

'Bird's brother has a name ... Brother Bird

Steve Haskin of The Blood-Horse reports that the 2-year-old brother of Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird now has a name -- Brother Bird.

That's the moniker registered for him by Dogwood Stable, who bought him for $485,000 at the recent Fasig-Tipton Mid-Atlantic sale of 2-year-olds in training.

The name fits, I suppose. He'll have to do some real running to make people remember him as more than just Mine That Bird's brother.

Meanwhile, what a tidy profit for Paul Saylor. He bought the colt for $100,000 at the March Timonium 2-year-old sale. A few weeks later, MTB's sloshing home first at Churchill and a quick rollback of the colt into another sale attracts a price $385,000 higher than Saylor paid.

That's the kind of quick profit of which the econ major at UVA can be proud. It's like Brother Bird won Saylor a Grade 1 purse without ever wearing the owner's orange and teal.

Does the "D" stand for "Duh?"

Steve Haskin of The Blood-Horse has taken to task trainer D. Wayne Lukas for the conditioner's daft suggestion that the Triple Crown race distances be changed, most notably the Belmont Stakes at a mile and a half.

"Nobody cares about mile and a half horses anymore," said Lukas in The New York Post. "The living proof is that every Belmont winner winds up in Italy, Puerto Rico, you name it. They don't stand in Lexington. I've had four Belmont winners and I don't know where the hell they are."

For starters, has Lukas (duh) slept through the 2009 Triple Crown series? It was a Belmont winner -- Kentucky-based stallion Birdstone -- that has sired a Kentucky Derby winner and Preakness-placer, Mine That Bird, from his first crop.

Haskin lists for Lukas several Belmont winners who (duh) stand in Kentucky, usually for serious coin, including Lemon Drop Kid and Empire Maker. (Edit: And top equine author Avalyn Hunter notes Lukas has apparently also forgotten about two-time leading sire, A.P. Indy, one I certainly also should have mentioned.)

And, to help refresh the trainer's memory of his own horses, Lukas-trained Belmont winner Thunder Gulch stands at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky. (13.62 miles from Lexington per Mapquest, should Mr. Lukas care to visit) and among many great ones has sired Preakness/Belmont winner and Horse of the Year Point Given. Lukas also won the Belmont with Tabasco Cat, who sired G1 miler Island Sand and multiple G1 juvenile Habibti among other fine Kentucky-bred runners before being sent to Japan (where horse racing I'd daresay is more respected than in the States). Lukas' other Belmont winners, Editor's Note and Commendable, both began stud careers in Kentucky before being sent to Argentina and South Korea, respectively.

You know, D. Wayne Lukas started out racing Quarter Horses and has risen to tie the legendary Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons in Triple Crown wins with 13. But considering what he thinks of distance horses, sometimes I wonder how a Lukas horse ever won a race longer than 350 yards.

Blogger's note: This series of posts is the output you get when I've been gone 24 hours.