RACING/BELMONT STAKES:IT IS three years since Aidan O'Brien last won a classic outside of Ireland and the champion trainer will hope Master Of Hounds can end that streak when he lines up in tonight's $1 million (€696,000) Belmont Stakes in New York.
The Irish hope is drawn in stall one of the dozen runners for the final leg of America’s Triple Crown which include Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom and Shackleford, who reversed Churchill Downs form with his rival in the Preakness at Pimlico three weeks ago.
Tonight’s highlight could decide who will be the US’s leading three-year-old of 2011, with the line-up also including the Derby runner-up Nehro.
It is 21 years since the Dermot Weld’s Go And Go became the only European-trained runner to win a leg of the Triple Crown when the Moyglare-owned colt streaked away from a field that included that year’s Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled.
The mile-and-a-half trip at Belmont is considered a marathon stamina trip in the US, and it is that distance that is encouraging hopes among the O’Brien team that Master Of Hounds can improve on his fifth to Animal Kingdom in last month’s Derby and upset the home party.
The son of Kingmambo arrived at Belmont earlier in the week in what is a third transatlantic trip for him in seven months. Master Of Hounds finished unplaced in last winter’s Breeders’ Cup and also travelled to Dubai in March where he was narrowly beaten in the UAE Derby.
Top Californian-based rider Garrett Gomez again rides the Irish colt, and he will be on board O’Brien’s other Grade One hope tonight as Viscount Nelson lines up for the $400,000 (€278,500) Woodford Reserve Manhattan Handicap over a mile-and-a- quarter on the turf.
Viscount Nelson, a listed winner at the Curragh earlier this month, is rated a 4 to 1 second favourite by local layers, with the top American grass performer Gio Ponti a hot favourite. Viscount Nelson will race on Lasix for the first time.
However, the main focus will be on Belmont, with Animal Kingdom’s jockey, Johnny Velazquez, predicting a tough slog on the dirt.
“I think it’s going to be a grinder’s race. Going a mile-and-a-half, you can’t try to steal the race in front unless you’re going a half mile 52-and-change, and then it’ll be a sprint home basically the last quarter-of-a-mile,” Belmont’s top jockey said yesterday.
“If my horse runs back the race he ran at Pimlico, he’ll be very tough. The mile-and-a-half, I think, will be good for us. He keeps coming the whole time, so I think it’ll be very good.”
O’Brien has been dominant in home classics in recent years, but he is enduring a comparative classic drought overseas since Yeats won the French St Leger in 2008. Henrythenavigator also landed the English 2,000 Guineas that year.
Ireland’s champion trainer missed out at Epsom last weekend when Treasure Beach was just touched off by Pour Moi in the Derby and Wonder Of Wonders was also runner-up in the Oaks.
It is 10 years, though, since O’Brien secured a major victory at Belmont when Johannesburg landed a memorable success in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on the main dirt track.
Master Of Hounds has been pleasing in his work since Kentucky.
“He’s been training very, very well,” O’Brien’s representative, TJ Comerford, told reporters in New York. “He’d never actually run on the dirt before he cantered around on the dirt at Churchill Downs. He’ll definitely put up a good show here. The one-and-a-half miles will hit him on the head.”
