BELMONT STAKES : Trainer Nafzger Confident of Unbridled Win

No matter how the page is turned, Unbridled appears on paper to be unbeatable in Saturday’s 122nd Belmont Stakes and trainer Carl Nafzger is having fun.

He watched Unbridled work 5 furlongs with Craig Perret in the saddle Tuesday in a shade more than a minute, a move intended to sharpen the colt for the task at hand. Perfect. “(Perret) was just sitting on him the last eighth,” Nafzger said.

“When things are going right, it’s fun,” Nafzger said. “When he’s training good, I’m having fun.”

Though horseplayers in search of an upset whisper that Thirty Six Red could steal the race with an unchallenged lead and a slow pace and that the new shooter from Ireland, Go and Go, has been pointed by a very shrewd trainer toward the last leg of the American Triple Crown, the evidence is overwhelmingly in Unbridled’s favor.

Since he won the Florida Derby in March, only Summer Squall has been his equal. And the Preakness winner, unable to compete without medication, has left the Belmont stage to the Florida-bred colt.

Unbridled’s victory in the Derby, in which he overpowered the field in the final quarter of a mile, is arguably the best individual effort of the season by a 3-year-old. He failed to handle the talented, courageous Summer Squall at Pimlico, but Unbridled finished nine lengths ahead of the third horse, Mister Frisky, who, despite a developing illness, finished in front of two Belmont starters, Land Rush and Baron de Vaux.

There is speculation that 1 1/2 miles without the Lasix, with which he has been treated in all his races this season, may diminish his late run, but speculation does not translate from cold data. On paper, Unbridled will run faster and stay a greater distance than his American opponents in the Belmont.

And if the Irish colt--who, Nafzger warns, will be “dead fit”--is judged on his two American races, his eighth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Gulfstream in November was as mediocre as last fall’s victory in the Laurel Futurity was good.

After the Derby, Nafzger observed that Unbridled had reached a point in his development at which he can be counted on to run his race under any circumstances, regardless of pace or distance, and nothing happened in the Preakness to alter that opinion.

Nafzger said he is confident that the strong-bodied son of Fappiano will stay 12 furlongs. If the lack of medication is a concern, it is not evident. Nafzger is not inclined to debate the merits of Lasix, but he is not averse to explaining how the process of hydration and dehydration will compensate for the absence of the drug.

Unbridled need only finish the race to earn the $1-million Triple Crown bonus. He need only run to his numbers to come out of the series with two legs of the Triple Crown.