Rags to Riches Beats Colt to Wire
Fitting Girl-Boy Battle Brings Win for Pletcher in Belmont
On center stage, and off her knees, the filly Rags to Riches did not disappoint in the 2007 Belmont. She showed everything said of her. Curlin battled her bravely.
She's got class. She's got attitude. She's got style. She's a winner.
Rags to Riches stumbled to her knees out of the gate but recovered to earn "girl power" by winning the 139th running of the $1 million Belmont Stakes June 9 at New York's Belmont Park over Preakness champion Curlin. The last quarter mile featured a no flinching, blitzing, heart-ponding duel in :23-4/5 between the two favorites that resulted in wild cheering approval from the jubilant crowd.
Stride for Stride Poetry
It was poetic. It was awesome, stride for stride fantasy in reality time, girl versus boy, the ultimate racing fan pleaser, and easily the race of the season given the battle between the sexes that developed and created eyeball to eyeball confrontation to the wire.
Several nail biters to the end, plus the cavalry rush of four to the finish in the Blue Grass Stakes, have highlighted a season that saw the Triple Crown championship fall by the wayside for a 29th year. Its last winner remains Affirmed in 1978.
The slow paced Belmont Stakes turned into a grinding match race run in 2:28.74 from a field of seven when Rags to Riches, angling from four wide on the far turn, and Curlin, one out from the rail, picked off Hard Spun and C P West. Boy and girl charged ahead together.
Rags to Riches and Curlin breathed on one another to the end, in a two furlong gallop of focus, courage, and grit. Rags to Riches gained the lead. (Pletcher threw caution to the winds and cheered mightily). Curlin willed himself even with the filly. They deadlocked again. The filly poked her head in front. One wonders if the two valiant chestnuts would have gone another trip around glued to each other if the wire hadn't ended the mammoth struggle.
Tiago and Mike Smith, winners of this season's Santa Anita Derby, closed for a distant third place.
TC Losing Skids Broken
No Triple Crown was won in 2007, but two major racing stars were born, and two stalwart men earned their first Triple Crown race victories. Todd Pletcher trained the filly and his go-to jockey, John Velazquez, rode her to the winner's circle, with both breaking their (0-28 and 0-11, respectively) losing skids in the classics.
Rising Stars
Rags to Riches won her fifth straight race, and became the first filly to win the Belmont in its 1-1/2 mile format. Her triumph followed an impressive score in the Kentucky Oaks May 4.
Curlin lost for only the second time, having run third in the Kentucky Derby. In the Preakness, he chased Street Sense to the back burner of thought with an identical stretch run, that time to victory. Curlin was unraced as a two-year-old. He became the horse to beat in the "Test of a Champion" Belmont Stakes.
Rags to Riches elevated herself to true stardom on center stage at a most appropriate time - a few hours before the nationally televised story of Ruffian, the historic female Triple Crown champion and thoroughbred racing's greatest filly.
