Horse Racing Fantasy Community

I love Rags to Riches, let's get that out of the way right now. The biggest reason I love her is because unlike most horses in North American racing today that are bred purely for speed, she was a stamina horse. She really didn't have great speed, so she didn't do all that much in sprint races, but as the races got longer, she got better. One of the major concerns that trainers have for their horses heading into the running of the Belmont Stakes is whether or not they can go the grueling mile and a half distance. Back in the day, mile and a half races were much more prevalent in American racing, and there were some races that were even longer in distance. For instance, up until the mid 1970's the Jockey Club Gold Cup was run at 2 miles. But today, no race is longer.
Still, one thing remains the same about the Belmont: coming into the race, none of the horses running in it have ever run a mile and a half, which means that most trainers just have no idea if their horse can run that far and win. Rags to Riches was an exception. She had consistently gotten better as the distances of her races increased, And she had three successive Belmont winners in her paternal lineage: sire A.P. Indy, grandsire Seattle Slew, and SECRETARIAT. Those two factors contributed to her trainer's confidence in entering his filly in the Belmont.

All that said, I don't think Rags to Riches was the best horse in the Belmont. I think Curlin was; Rags to Riches had the edge in stamina to be sure. She also had demonstrated in her previous races that she was a formidable competitor in a stretch drive. So that was Rags to Riches' whole game: use her stamina to get to the stretch in striking distance, then use her inherent competitiveness combined with the stamina to win the race, usually pulling away.

On the other hand, Curlin, even in June of 2007, was a much more talented horse. It's true that he didn't have as much stamina as Rags to Riches, but he still did have very good stamina; he wasn't lacking in that department. Also, he had proven in his previous race, the Preakness, that he had just as much fire in a stretch drive, having run down Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense at the wire to win in a stakes-record tying time of 1:53&2. He also had much more raw speed than Rags to Riches. In addition, and this cannot be minimized, I believe that her stamina advantage was not as big since they were both 3; if both horses were fully mature, which of course they were not when they ran the Belmont. In fact, at age 3 fillies are far less physically developed than colts. Now, I know that Rags to Riches wasn't just any other filly, but she was a filly, and even though she was much bigger than most fillies, she still wasn't as far along in her physical development as Curlin. Yes, the edge in stamina went to Rags to Riches, but not by very much.

The point of all this is that I think a careful analysis of the race will reveal that the only reason that Curlin didn't win the Belmont was because of the way in which the race was run, not only by Curlin but by the entire field. Because of Rags to Riches lack of raw speed, there really was only one way for her to have a chance to win, and it's great that she did, because if she didn't history would have been deprived of something nobody had ever seen before. It's not like there was a Triple Crown at stake, and Curlin went on to become Horse of the Year and become the all-time leader in winnings. In other words, there's no shame that Curlin lost the Belmont, but in tomorrow's entry I'm going to show, through simple but thorough analysis of the race, precisely why Curlin lost the Belmont.