TurfPublicists: BELMONT PARK NOTES: Sunday, June 6, 2010

**To see video of winning trainer Bill Mott on Sunday morning discussing Drosselmeyer's victory, please visit: http://www.belmontstakes.com/multimedia/features/2010/6/6/post-belmont-with-bill-mott/ **

**To see video of trainer Nick Zito discussing beaten favorite Ice Box and runner-up Fly down, please visit: http://www.belmontstakes.com/multimedia/features/2010/06/06/post-belmont-with-nick-zito/ **

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Contact: NYRA Press office

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BELMONT PARK NOTES

Travers a primary goal for Belmont winner Drosselmeyer; Proviso "great" after Just a Game victory
Travers a target for runner-up Fly Down; favored Ice Box displaced palette in Belmont
First Dude returning to Kentucky, coming back for Travers
Pletcher looks ahead to Saratoga stakes for Bribon and Phola; Super Saver also heading to Spa
King's Bishop or Travers on horizon for Trappe Shot; "Charly" fine after Belmont
Clement delighted with 1-2 finish of Woodford Reserve Manhattan

ELMONT, N. Y. – After celebrating his first Belmont Stakes win by having dinner with family and friends, Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott was back at work at his Belmont Park barn early Sunday morning.

WinStar Farms' Drosselmeyer, the gleaming copper-colored colt whose victory on Saturday marked the first in a Triple Crown race for the 57-year-old trainer, came out of his three-quarter length victory over Fly Down in good order, Mott reported.

"He's still shiny," quipped Mott.

With three different horses having each having won a leg of the Triple Crown – WinStar's Super Saver took the Derby while juvenile champion Lookin At Lucky won the Preakness – leadership in the 3-year-old division appears up for grabs.

"As Elliott [Walden, racing manager for WinStar Farm] said yesterday, the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont winner have to sort themselves out and see who's best by the end of the year," said Mott.

Toward that end, Mott said the Grade 1, $1 million Travers at Saratoga Race Course on August 28 was a primary objective for the son of Distorted Humor.

"We'd like to think, come Saratoga time, at the end of the meet, they run the Travers, and that maybe he'd have an opportunity to run in there," said Mott. "That's what I'm hoping."

The 1 ½-mile Belmont marked the first appearance in this year's Triple Crown series for Drosselmeyer, who was excluded from the Kentucky Derby for want of graded stakes earnings. His two victories prior to the Belmont comprised a maiden win at Churchill Downs and an allowance victory at Gulfstream Park; he subsequently was fourth in the Risen Star and third in the Louisiana Derby.

"As far as I'm concerned, I'm very content having won the Belmont and not run in the Derby," said Mott, "because that's the way it worked out. He didn't earn his way into the Derby. And I believe things happen for a reason."

Drosselmeyer prepped for his Belmont victory in the Grade 2 Dwyer at Belmont Park on May 8, a race in which he finished second, beaten six lengths, as the 3-5 favorite. Following that race, the decision was made to replace Hall of Famer Kent Desormeaux with another Hall of Famer, Mike Smith.

"I don't think Kent really did anything wrong on this horse," said Mott. "Some things were not developing or opening up the way we'd like them to, or he wanted it to, but it was through no fault of his."

In addition to the Belmont victory, which Mott said had yet to sink in, the trainer also teamed with Smith to win the Grade 1 Just a Game with Juddmonte Farms' Proviso.

"She's great," said Mott. "By the time we got back with the Belmont horse she had already eaten up and had her head over the screen, looking out."

* * *

Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito reflected on his unique 2010 Triple Crown experience Sunday morning following the 142^nd running of the Belmont Stakes, in which he saddled late-running second-place finisher Fly Down and favored Ice Box, who finished ninth.

Zito said he believed he was the first trainer to hit the board in all three Triple Crown races with three different horses – Ice Box was second in the Kentucky Derby and Jackson Bend finished third in the Preakness.

Both of Zito's Belmont starters came out of the race in good order.

"Ice Box, we scoped him after the race and he was clean. He had no blood, and no mucus," Zito said. "However, he did displace, he flipped his palette. He's an excitable horse – he's a Pulpit, he's out of a Tabasco Cat mare. It was very, very hot down here, we didn't catch a break that way. The last two days he was ready to explode, he was ready to do something, and he probably left his race somewhere else other than the track.

"Fly Down he ran a great race. Obviously a lot of people give Mike Smith [riding Drosselmeyer] credit – rightfully so – because he kept him in. [Fly Down] couldn't get clear until the very end, and you saw what he did in the lane. It was remarkable how he got second. As soon as he got clear, he beat First Dude, again. Terrific horse."

Zito has saddled 24 Belmont starters, winning the race twice: in 2004 with Birdstone and 2008 with Da' Tara, both Triple Crown upsets. Fly Down was Zito's seventh Belmont Stakes runner-up and the trainer also owns two third-place finishes in the race.

Zito was looking ahead to Saratoga for Richard Pell's Fly Down, with an eye to the Travers on August 28, a race he said he would also consider for Jackson Bend. Robert LaPenta is the majority owner of Wood Memorial runner-up Jackson Bend, and also owns Ice Box.

"I'd like to go straight to the Haskell [Grade 1, Monmouth Park, August 1] with Ice Box because if he gets any kind of pace, he's a much better horse. We'll see what Mr. LaPenta wants to do, but he's still one of the better three-year-olds around. He had a legitimate excuse yesterday. I think the ultimate goal is to probably get them all in the Breeders' Cup, then work our way backwards from there.

"You gotta be content, you gotta be thankful to have horses running in these races and we did. We had three different horses that ran unbelievable."

* * *

First Dude came out of his third-place effort in yesterday's Belmont Stakes in good order, trainer Dale Romans revealed.

"He's fine," said Romans. "It doesn't seem like the race took too much out of him, but we'll see when we get back [to Kentucky]. I think he ran hard and tried the whole way."

The Grade 1 Travers at Saratoga is a target for First Dude, who is named for Todd Palin, the husband of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

With the Palins in attendance at the Belmont Stakes yesterday, Romans was able to meet the colt's namesake.

"I didn't know they were coming, so that was interesting," said Romans. "It was nice being able to meet them."

* * *

Todd Pletcher is starting to look ahead to Saratoga for two of his horses that ran well on the Belmont Stakes undercard: Grade 2 True North winner Bribon and Grade 1 Just a Game runner-up Phola.

Pletcher is targeting the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt at six furlongs on August 8 after the 7-year-old Bribon rebounded from a disappointing fifth-place finish in the Grade 3 Westchester with a 1½-length victory in the True North.

"He came back very well," Pletcher said. "We'll probably go to the Vanderbilt and see how that goes, and possibly the Forego after that. Right now, we are thinking about keeping him sprinting. We felt it was the right opportunity to experiment with him. If he performed well, it would open up more options for him. In the handicap division, the races are a mile and an eighth or a mile and a quarter. We thought he might be suited for sprinting."

Looking for her fourth consecutive win this year while running at the Grade 1 level for the first time, Phola raced last for about six furlongs before making a charge down the stretch and came up just a half-length short to multiple Grade 1 winner Proviso in the Just a Game.

With that performance, Pletcher is looking to bring Phola to the Grade 1 Diana at 1 1/8^th miles on Saratoga's turf course on July 31.

"I thought she ran a huge race against Proviso," Pletcher said. "We were pleased with that. We'll probably look at the Diana as her next race. She was coming home at the last quarter. She didn't get much help on the front end."

Meanwhile, over the next several weeks, Pletcher said he will be working with WinStar Farm on the plans for Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver, who eventually will make the trek to Saratoga.

"I'm going to continue to discuss it with Elliott Walden and the WinStar team," said Pletcher. "Super Saver will come with me to Saratoga, but that is still a while away."

* * *

Grade 1 races are on the horizon for Trappe Shot, the easy winner of a deep allowance race on yesterday's Belmont Stakes undercard.

Trappe Shot, owned by Nicholas Brady's Mill House, was geared down late as he defeated Tahitian Warrior by four lengths and picked up his third consecutive victory. The son of Tapit covered seven furlongs in 1:22.18, 0.46 seconds faster than D' Funnybone's time when he won the Grade 2 Woody Stephens presented by Emirates Airline over the same distance later in the day.

"That was impressive," reflected Kiaran McLaughlin Sunday morning. "We're pointing to August 28 [at Saratoga], whether it's the [Grade 1] King's Bishop or [Grade 1] Travers. We could go to the [Grade 2, August 2] Amsterdam or [Grade 2, July 31] Jim Dandy first, depending on which way we're leaning."

McLaughlin added that he was "very happy" with how Uptowncharlybrown came out of yesterday's Belmont Stakes.

Uptowncharlybrown was fifth under the finish line in the Belmont but was later disqualified and unplaced after it was discovered an eight-pound lead pad fell out of the saddle during the race, causing him to fail to carry the 126-pound weight assignment over the 1½-mile distance.

"It was a very strange situation," said McLaughlin. "I've never had that happen to me, but I'm sure it has happened before."

* * *

Christophe Clement was pleased with Winchester and champion Gio Ponti the morning after they gave the trainer a 1-2 sweep in yesterday's Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Manhattan Handicap.

Winchester prevailed by a half-length over his stablemate, who checked on the far turn and had to thread his way through traffic.

"[Winchester] ran a very good race," said Clement. "Horses were coming from off the pace yesterday, which is a bit unusual for a firm turf course. He usually prefers some cut in the ground, but he handled the firm turf well."

Gio Ponti, last year's Champion Older Male and Champion Male Turf Horse, has lost five straight, but Clement firmly believes that the 5-year-old son of Tale of the Cat is still the division leader.

"It was a handicap and Gio Ponti gave [six pounds to the winner]," stressed Clement. "Considering it was his first race [since he finished fourth in the Dubai World Cup], how he was short a few works, the weight, and the trip, he ran a superb race."

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