With Creator, WinStar Made All the Right Moves

Yes, Creator (Tapit) deserves a lot of credit for winning Saturday's GI Belmont S. He's the one who ran around the racetrack and outgamed Destin (Giant's Causeway) to win by a hair. But he doesn't get all the credit. His owners, WinStar Farm and Bobby Flay, pushed every right button leading into this race and had they not, sorry, Creator wouldn't have won. The horse won by a mere nose, a few inches that separated winning and losing, and the humans behind him made that nose happen.

Exaggerator (Curlin) seemed to be considerably better than everyone else in the field, but if he floundered, this looked like a race that anyone could win. Contenders two through 12 were that evenly matched. What they needed was an edge.

And WinStar found not one , but two.

Ricardo Santana, Jr. had ridden Creator in his last four starts, including a win in the GI Arkansas Derby and a 13th-place finish in the GI Kentucky Derby. Santana is a good jockey, but just a good jockey. He's also someone who doesn't know his way around the trickiest racetrack in the country, Belmont Park. Santana had had just eight prior mounts at Belmont and had never won a race there. On this expansive track with its sweeping turns and long stretch, out-of-town jockeys need a road map to find their way around.

Loyalty may be one thing, but why compromise your chances in a Triple Crown race? WinStar told Santana he'd have to sit this one out and chose the brilliant young New York rider Irad Ortiz, Jr. He's won 374 races at Belmont, as well as two riding titles at the Elmont, New York oval.

“I thought Irad gave him a perfect trip,” trainer Steve Asmussen said. “I thought he saved yards and won by inches. He made the difference.”

Their next move was to take Gettysburg (Pioneerof the Nile) away from Todd Pletcher, turn him over to Steve Asmussen and enter him as a rabbit. That was no slight on Pletcher, but he had speed horses of his own in the race and it wouldn't have sat well with his owners had he run a horse that likely would have compromised their chances.

Gettysburg did his job, keeping Pletcher's Destin off the lead. Had Gettysburg not been in the race, Destin would have been loose on the lead, a much more dangerous trip than the one he ended up sitting.

In a race that was this close, would Creator have won if ridden by Ricardo Santana, Jr. and would he have won if he didn't get an assist from Gettysburg? I don't think so.

This race has been good to WinStar. It has won it now twice since 2010, after Drosselmeyer (Distorted Humor) landed the 2010 edition. In Creator, WinStar now has a son of Tapit who is a Classic winner and a two-time Grade I winner. The grey colt looks like a very promising stallion.

As for the rest of the field, the guess is that Exaggerator (Curlin) finally ran out of gas. He was a bit wide on both turns, but that's not why he finished 11th. American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) made us forget just how hard the Triple Crown grind is. It got to Exaggerator.

That wasn't the case with Lani (Tapit), who was third. Ninth in the Kentucky Derby, fifth in the GI Preakness, third in the

Belmont…his connections must be wishing this were the Quadruple Crown.

Though there were three different winners of the 2016 Triple Crown races, one stands above the rest. Nyquist (Uncle Mo) won the most important race of the three, the Kentucky Derby, and might well have won the Preakness had he had a better ride. A minor problem kept him out of the Belmont, but he will be back. The only thing that changed for him in the Triple Crown is that he no longer looks invincible.

It will be fun to see the three Classic winners meet again, hopefully, in the same races. This is no time to duck anyone, it's a time to give the fans a treat in the GI Haskell, the GI Travers, the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, which is shaping up as one of the best races ever run.

I'm staying on the Nyquist bandwagon, but I respect Creator. He's a good horse getting better and the there may be no smarter team in the sport than WinStar and Steve Asmussen. This Belmont victory belonged to them.