Grown-Ups Acting Like Bullies Toward 3-Year-Olds at Belmont

If horses could read, the trainers of Silverbulletday and Lemon Drop Kid would have been tacking up disparaging quotes from rival trainers on the barn bulletin boards before this key weekend of Breeders’ Cup prep races at Belmont Park.

When Silverbulletday, clearly the best 3-year-old filly in the land, crashes the ranks of older fillies and mares in Sunday’s $500,000 Beldame Stakes, one of her opponents will be Beautiful Pleasure, trained by an unintimidated John Ward.

“Silverbulletday will have to step up,” Ward said. “[Against the 3-year-olds], it’s been like playing college ball for her, and now she’s going to try to beat the pros. She can’t afford any mistakes Sunday, if she’s going to win.”

Another Belmont race on Sunday is the $1-million Jockey Club Gold Cup, the last major Eastern prep for the $4-million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Gulfstream Park on Nov. 6. Lemon Drop Kid, winner of the Belmont Stakes and the Travers at Saratoga, is one of the contenders, but the 7-5 favorite is Behrens, trained by James Bond.

“You can’t take Lemon Drop Kid lightly,” Bond said. “But he’s going to have to stand up to the plate and run an A-plus race. He’s run some A races, but now he needs an A-plus. It’s a tough spot for a 3-year-old, running against older horses. I’ve been there myself, with Behrens when he was a 3-year-old, and with Will’s Way.”

Bond has been there and not done that. In 1996, Will’s Way won the Travers, but he had never raced older horses when he ran seventh at Woodbine in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

The next year, Behrens, second to Deputy Commander in the Travers and winner of the Pegasus Handicap at the Meadowlands against 3-year-olds, also finished seventh against older horses in the Classic at Hollywood Park.

“That was a mistake,” Bond said. “I should have run him in the Jockey Club Gold Cup to give him more experience. When he ran in the Breeders’ Cup, he wasn’t seasoned enough.”

A hock injury short-circuited Behrens’ march to the Breeders’ Cup last year, but this season he has four wins and three seconds in seven starts.

“This year, we mapped out a plan after his first race in Florida, and we haven’t deviated from it,” Bond said. “The horse is telling us that we’ve done right by him, and he’s done right by us.”

Sunday’s nine-horse field includes River Keen, Almutawakel and Stephen Got Even, who were the first three finishers in the Woodward at Belmont on Sept. 18. Others running are Vision And Verse, Jack Grandi and the entry of Black Ring and Catienus.

Bob Baffert, positioned for a big weekend on three fronts, trains River Keen and Silverbulletday. At Santa Anita, Baffert’s top 2-year-olds, Chilukki and Forest Camp, will be running today and Sunday, respectively, in the Oak Leaf and Norfolk Stakes.

Baffert’s other Breeders’ Cup Classic candidate, General Challenge, will wait until next Saturday for his Breeders’ Cup tune-up, in the Goodwood Handicap at Santa Anita.

Silverbulletday won the Gazelle Handicap at Belmont on Sept. 11.

“Everybody’s saying that that wasn’t her best race,” Baffert said. “What do they want her to do, win by eight or 10 lengths every time?”

Although the Jockey Club Gold Cup has been won by only two 3-year-olds--Skip Away in 1996 and Miner’s Mark in 1993--in the last nine years, the race’s long history is peppered with 3-year-old winners.

Man o’ War was only 3 when he won in 1920, the second year the stake was run. Not long after the end of World War II, 3-year-olds won the stake nine consecutive years, a streak that started with Phalanx and ended with Nashua, who won in 1956 and then broke the string when he won in 1957 as a 4-year-old. In the 1960s, when the race was two miles, as opposed to 1 1/4 now, Kelso won the first of his five successive Gold Cup wins as a 3-year-old.

“Behrens is the top horse in there,” said trainer Scotty Schulhofer, whose Lemon Drop Kid could further complicate the 3-year-old title picture by winning Sunday. “I’m not confident I can beat him, but I’d like to try. I just hope it’s dry and there’s some kind of [early] pace. My horse likes to run at other horses. He loves Belmont Park. At Belmont, even if a horse can’t get to the inside, he’s got those sweeping turns working for him.”

Ward elected to run Beautiful Pleasure in the Beldame instead of the Spinster Stakes at Keeneland next Saturday. Beautiful Pleasure and Banshee Breeze, 1-2 in the Personal Ensign Handicap at Saratoga in August, won’t have their rematch until the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, since Banshee Breeze’s trainer, Carl Nafzger, is running his horse in the Spinster.

“I’d be looking at a bear at both ends,” said Ward, who’s based in Kentucky. “The timing is the reason we’re going back to New York. I like the idea of the extra week between this race and the Breeders’ Cup.’

At Churchill Downs, where Nafzger trains his horses, Pat Day has been getting used to Banshee Breeze in the mornings. Nafzger hired Day to ride the filly through the Breeders’ Cup after it became clear that Jerry Bailey’s commitment was to Silverbulletday. Bailey must be one horsemen who thinks that Baffert’s filly will graduate from the colleges to the pros, just fine.

Horse Racing Notes

Bob Baffert is running in two stakes at Keeneland today, with Tout Charmant in the $500,000 Queen Elizabeth Challenge Cup and Joe Who in the $400,000 Keeneland Turf Mile. Chris Antley has both mounts. . . . Besides Forest Camp, who drew the rail, the other entrants for Sunday’s Norfolk are Anees, New Advantage, Radix Alis, Slayton and Dixie Union.

In Sunday’s Lady’s Secret Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Santa Anita, Manistique will carry 123 pounds, giving away seven to 13 pounds to her five opponents. . . . Santa Anita owner Frank Stronach, who won the Hawthorne Gold Cup last year with Awesome Again, tries to repeat in the stake today with Golden Missile. . . . Son Of A Pistol has shipped in from Santa Anita to run in today’s $300,000 Smile Sprint Handicap at Calder in Miami.

Tom Meeker, chief executive officer of Churchill Downs, said that his parent company has allocated $15 million to renovate newly acquired Hollywood Park. Hollywood’s dirt racing surface has already been reworked since the last meeting ended in July. . . . If Daylami comes to North America, it won’t be for the Breeders’ Cup Turf. The British horse’s next start may be in the $1-million Canadian International at Woodbine near Toronto on Oct. 17.

Coral, the British bookmaking concern, gives European horses short shrift in the Breeders’ Cup. The odds are 4-6 that the European contingent gets shut out. “The American [horses] definitely lack [their] usual strength and depth,” said Simon Clare, a Coral spokesman “But the major opponents facing the European raiders [at Gulfstream Park] are undoubtedly the heat, the humidity and the track.”