EVER since Hard Spun backed up in the Preakness Stakes three weeks ago, his cowboy trainer Larry Jones has had his back pinned to the barn door trying to explain why he thinks the horse will run a mile and a half in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.
The media might be skeptical of the horse’s stamina, but not the New York Racing Association’s pricemaker Eric Donovan, who yesterday listed Hard Spun as the 5-2 second choice behind the heavily favored Curlin.
The “problem” with Hard Spun is that, from day one, he has outsprinted his pedigree. He may have the second-best staying line in the Belmont behind the filly Rags to Riches, but in his races, he keeps flashing a blazing speed that gives him the look of a sprinter.
No horse born can run a mile and a half at the rate Hard Spun ran in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. In both of those classics, Hard Spun set eye-popping fractions, only to pay the penalty by seeing Street Sense pass him in both races and Curlin in the Preakness.
At the barn yesterday, like every other day, the first question fired at the cowboy went like this, “What makes you think this horse can go a mile and a half?”
Jones, as patient and good humored as any man on the backstretch, replied, “He gallops a mile and a half every day. I know he can go that far, but I don’t know how fast he can go that far.
“There is no reason to think he cannot do it. He has the pedigree – his sire Danzig sired a Belmont winner in Danzig Connection. In the Kentucky Derby, after setting the pace, he was still full of run when Street Sense went by him.
“In the Preakness, he got tired for a very good reason – after going three-quarters in 1.09 and change. At that rate, you’re not supposed to finish a race at a mile and three sixteenths. Yet he still finished third.”
Hard Spun has been the unsung hero of the Triple Crown series so far. He’s carried the flag up front from Churchill Downs to Pimlico and his rivals have had to dig deep to their cores to get by him. Yet not once has he cried, “No mas, no mas.”
If ever a horse deserves to win one of these classics, it is Hard Spun. He’s hickory tough, as honest as the day is long and as fast as anything around the track these days. So why hasn’t he won one?
Jones has had a lot of time to think in the five weeks since the Derby and said he has grown more and more frustrated at what happened in Louisville.
“When I look back I have to think the racing gods were with Street Sense,” he said. “We got a good trip up front but we had to earn it. They got an unbelievable trip and it was handed to them.
“Street Sense got a pace to run at, he saved all the ground, he never had to check, things you can’t expect for a horse to get away with, running way back in 19th place in the Derby. He had to have all the luck in the world to beat us.”
The Preakness ended up a “suicide mission,” in Jones’ view.
So Hard Spun’s chances Saturday will depend almost entirely on how fast – or slow -the Belmont is run. Most Belmonts run the three-quarters in 1.12 and change. For Hard Spun, that’s just cruising.
Give him that and he might sprint the stretch like a quarter horse.
If Hard Spun’s stamina is a query in some minds, the jockey dodge looms in others. Top jock Garret Gomez accepted the ride on Hard Spun on the assumption trainer Todd Pletcher was not going to run any horse in the Belmont.
But on Tuesday, when Pletcher decided to run the outstanding filly Rags to Riches in the Belmont, Gomez and his agent Ron Anderson did everything to try to get off Hard Spun and get on Rags to Riches. Gomez has won three straight Grade 1 races on Rags to Riches.
Jones held Gomez to his commitment so John Velazquez snagged the ride on Rags to Riches. Gomez’s attempt to vacate Hard Spun in favor of the filly is not a reassuring signal.
“We’ve run every test imaginable on our horse since the Preakness and he’s passed everything with flying colors,” Jones said. “We’re ready. He gives you a good run every time.”