Point Gets Driven Across

Point Given did not win the Triple Crown--five weeks ago there was a Kentucky Derby that assured that--but the strapping colt will be remembered as one of the best horses to campaign in the rigorous series after a by-the-numbers victory Saturday in the Belmont Stakes.

Before a crowd of 73,857--including former President Clinton and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton--Point Given hung up these numbers in the 133rd running of the Belmont:

* A winning margin of 12 1/4 lengths, which was the seventh largest and the best since Risen Star’s 14 3/4-length romp in 1988.

* A winning time of 2:26 2/5 for the 1 1/2 miles, which tied for the fourth-fastest clocking and has been surpassed only by Secretariat’s world-record 2:24 (1973), Easy Goer’s 2:26 (1989) and A.P. Indy’s 2:26 (1992).

Unofficially, Point Given may have set a record for fewest deep breaths after winning a Belmont. In the winner’s circle, while the Clintons--waiting to present the trophy--stiff-upper-lipped a cascade of boos, trainer Bob Baffert’s colt looked as if he could have gone out and completed the course again.

“I pretty much galloped him to the quarter pole,” said Gary Stevens, who rode Point Given for his third Belmont and eighth Triple Crown win. “The race was basically over very early on. I’ve never ridden a horse like him. He put on an unbelievable show today.”

Baffert, who has won the Kentucky Derby twice and the Preakness three times, finally has his Belmont. Twice, in 1997 and 1998, Baffert missed out on a Triple Crown sweep and two $5-million bonuses when Silver Charm and Real Quiet suffered narrow defeats in the Belmont. This time the $5 million got away because Point Given ran a distant fifth in the Derby before winning the Preakness and the Belmont.

“Fifteen million,” Baffert said, thinking about all that lucre and rolling his eyes. “We’ve gone back and forth about what happened in the Derby, and we’ll probably never know why. You drive yourself crazy wondering. We talked about the hard surface at Churchill Downs. It just wasn’t his day and [winning] didn’t happen.”

Second in the Preakness, A P Valentine was the runner-up again Saturday, finishing three-quarters of a length ahead of Monarchos, the Kentucky Derby winner that ran sixth in the Preakness. In 78-degree weather, and all them running 1 1/2 miles for the first time, there was a collective stagger after that, with the rest of the order of finish belonging to Dollar Bill, Invisible Ink, Thunder Blitz, Buckle Down Ben, Balto Star and Dr Greenfield.

Favored in all three Triple Crown races, Point Given paid $4.70 for $2. He collared $600,000 of the $1-million purse, lifting his earnings to $2.4 million. His sire, Thunder Gulch, who was also ridden by Stevens, won the 1995 Belmont and became the 12th winner of the race to turn out at least one subsequent Belmont winner. The only other jockey to ride both a son of a Belmont winner and the sire is Bill Shoemaker, who was along for Sword Dancer’s win in 1959 and Damascus’ victory eight years later.

“Point Given has taken me to a different level,” said Stevens, when asked to compare Saturday’s hero with Thunder Gulch. “This colt is stronger and more athletic. He’s got everything that Thunder Gulch had, but double.”

Thunder Gulch won the Derby that eluded Point Given, but was third in the Preakness. Of the horses that ran in all three Triple Crown races, Point Given is the 10th horse to pull off the Preakness-Belmont double.

Point Given was bred, via a mating of Thunder Gulch with Turko’s Turn, a Turkoman mare, by Ahmed Salman, and he also races for the 42-year-old Saudi Arabian prince’s Thoroughbred Corp.

“I was extremely disappointed after the Derby,” Salman said. “I was extremely disappointed after the Preakness, because I wasn’t there [due to the press of business]. Now I’m tickled to death.”

Point Given, breaking from the outside post in the nine-horse field, had a good start and by the first turn, Stevens had angled him over to third place, behind Balto Star and Buckle Down Ben, who were setting modest fractions. Point Given kept that position until midway on the far turn, when he passed both of the leaders. He was two lengths ahead at the quarter pole, seven lengths to the good with an eighth of a mile left and kept widening the lead.

A P Valentine and Monarchos didn’t really rally, they just survived.

“This is bittersweet, because this horse should have the Triple Crown belt,” Stevens said. “But they all get beat. Unfortunately, we got beat on the wrong day.”

For Nick Zito, the hometown trainer, there were no winner’s white carnations again. Zito, who trains A P Valentine, is 0 for 11 in his backyard race, with five seconds.

“I tried to follow Point Given,” said Victor Espinoza, who rode A P Valentine, “but with a half-mile to go I knew I couldn’t beat [him]. With a sixteenth of a mile to go, the other horse was too far in front of me.”

John Ward, the trainer of Monarchos, commended Point Given.

“The winner ran an over-the-top race, and I congratulate him,” Ward said.

Monarchos’ jockey, Jorge Chavez, found his mount in seventh place, more than five lengths from the lead, after the opening half-mile.

“He ran hard today, but he didn’t run the race he ran in the Derby,” Chavez said. “At the five-eighths pole, I thought I might be able to catch the leader, but he just kept going and going.”

The Bob Baffert-trained Flame Thrower, second to Put It Back in Saturday’s $150,000 Riva Ridge Stakes at Belmont Park, was vanned off the track after the race. Flame Thrower, last year’s Del Mar Futurity and Norfolk winner, broke his left foreleg and will undergo surgery today.

In other stakes at Belmont Park, Forbidden Apple, ridden by Corey Nakatani, won the $400,000 Manhattan Handicap; Say Florida Sandy won the $150,000 True North Handicap; and License Fee won the $100,000 Just A Game Breeders’ Cup.

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BELMONT FINISH

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Horse Win Place Show Point Given $4.70 $3.70 $3.00 A P Valentine $5.00 $3.90 Monarchos $4.20

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