Like most others who follow racing, I am disappointed that Street Sense and Curlin are not having a rubber match in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes. It would be nice if such a showdown occurs later in the year in the Travers or the Breeders’ Cup Classic – Powered by Dodge or both. But if racing fans have learned anything in recent years, it’s that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Actually, given the possibility of injury or early retirement, a bird in the hand is worth more like 10 in the bush when it comes to star three-year-olds.  

We still have a very exciting horse race to consider on Saturday, however. In all honesty, I can find no reason to question Curlin’s credentials, and I think his morning line price of 6-5 might represent some small measure of value should that price hold up at post time on Saturday. James Quinn has one of his typically interesting pieces up on drf.com titled “Why Curlin Won’t Win”. I happen to disagree with his anti-Curlin arguments, but be that as it may, is there anything on the karma scale that should insure a Curlin victory more than a title like “Why Curlin Won’t Win”?

I digress. Back to the Belmont. Based on visuals, speed figures and everything else, I think Curlin and Street Sense showed themselves on Preakness Day to be the best three-year-old males out there this year. And since Street Sense will not take part in the Belmont, that leaves Curlin with a very big edge. But 6-5 shots are never much fun to play in and of themselves—even when that price is perceived as fair. So the question for me is: Who to play with Curlin?

One horse that won’t be on my tickets is Hard Spun. If he wins, I will lose.

Hard Spun is an easy horse to root for. He has a lot of octane, gets great pace figures, was victimized by what I thought was a premature move in the Preakness, has a great guy for a trainer and figures to get a slower early pace than in either the Preakness or Derby. If I owned Hard Spun, however, and was also an omnipotent racing god who could run against these same six horses at any distance I chose, I doubt that a mile and a half would make my top-10 list. He has lost ground in the stretch in each of his last three dirt races -- all at shorter distances. Some horses have just one speed that they run in early (which could mean that the “move” into Flying First Class and Xchanger wasn’t Mario Pino’s fault), but even if that’s not the case with Hard Spun, I have serious reservations that a mile and a half is a distance with which he will thrive. I know his dam won a stakes at that distance, but I would rather trust his past history rather than a guess about potential, and to me, his running lines are screaming out “miler”-- at least with respect to a dirt surface. He reminds me a little bit of Cherokee Run who I bet in the Belmont the year Colonial Affair won. I used all the same pace-heavy arguments that Hard Spun’s Belmont fans are using this year. Even as they turned for home, I thought Cherokee Run was going to win. Then he hit the wall. I think he proved to be the most talented horse in that race, having gone on to win the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, but a mile and a half just wasn’t his game, and at 5-2 or thereabouts, I don’t want to risk money on it being Hard Spun’s game.

Jazil’s name has come up a fair amount in the lead-in to this year’s Belmont because last year’s winner is a half-brother to the outstanding filly Rags to Riches who is by AP Indy (another Belmont winner) no less. That certainly won’t hurt the filly’s cause. Apparently Garrett Gomez was trying like heck to get out of his Hard Spun commitment to get back on this filly and with good reason. She’s won three of her last four by daylight, and the win that wasn’t by daylight was an absolutely incredible performance in the Las Virgenes when she had no business winning given her incredibly wide trip. She may be the race’s second-most-likely winner. However, I am concerned about her relatively short price, the fact that she will now be facing the expanded universe of male competition, the fact that Todd Pletcher was apparently not really pointing her to this race until a few days ago, and the fact that despite the chart comment of “hand urging”, she looked totally all out to me while taking command in the 1 1/8 miles Kentucky Oaks. She was better than her female foes that day, but she wasn’t exactly toying with them. I will use her, but I don’t expect her to threaten Curlin.

Slew’s Tizzy, I feel, is too slow to win this and will be used up dancing with Hard Spun in the early stages. C P West is another late addition to the field (something I’m never keen on as a handicapper) and strikes me as perhaps a somewhat less talented version of Hard Spun. Tiago has seemingly improved since blinkers were removed and may be a nice, longer-priced alternative to horses like Hard Spun and Rags to Riches underneath Curlin. It seems a pretty safe bet that he will get the distance, though being a half-brother to Giacomo gives him a bit of cachet that could well serve to hurt his price.

That leaves Imawildandcrazyguy, whose morning line price of 20-1 is twice that of Tiago, despite the fact that Imawildandcrazyguy defeated him in the Derby. Three-year-olds bloom at different times of the year, and it’s possible that the Derby was his coming out party…only no one seems to have been watching. I’ve seen no mentions of him so far as a legitimate Belmont contender, which makes me think his price will be every bit of that 20-1.

“Ha! This fool likes that clunk-up closer that will be lucky to run fourth,” you say.

Maybe. But we ARE talking about a 20-1 shot here, and let’s stop for a moment to consider this year’s Derby and Belmont as well as last year’s.

The interior fractions for this year’s Derby were :46 1/5, 1:11 and 1:37. Imawildandcrazyguy’s running line in his Derby past performances during the race are:

20th (trailing by 24 lengths at first call)

20^th (trailing by 18 at second call)

16^th (by 8 ¾ at third call)

11^th (by 11 lengths at stretch call)

4^th (beaten 8 ½ lengths at finish)

Now let’s go back to the 2006 Derby run of Jazil, who obviously then went on to win the Belmont.

The interior fractions for 2006 Derby were :46, 1:10 4/5 and 1:37. Jazil’s running line in his Derby past performances during the race are:

20th (trailing by 14 lengths at first call)

20^th (trailing by 17 at second call)

17^th (by 8 ¾ at third call)

6^th (by 7 lengths at stretch call)

4^th (beaten 9 ½ lengths at finish)

Not an exact match, mind you, but pretty darned similar. I am going to make a small win bet on Imawildandcrazyguy, a cold exacta punch with him underneath Curlin, and some tris and supers with Curlin on top, Imawildandcrazyguy in third and fourth and pretty much all of the others (especially Rags to Riches) filling in the other slots.

And after the bets are placed, I am going to hope that Jazil’s name is brought up after the race for more than just being Rags to Riches’s older brother.