Belmont Stakes 2013 – the Winning Running Style

As we approach the last leg of the Triple Crown, here is the final installment of the Winning Running Style blogs. As was the case with the Derby and the Preakness, there are misconceptions about how best to win Belmont Stakes 2013.

 

It would be very easy to think with the mile and a half distance, that closing running styles would be optimal in the Belmont, and as horses are unable to get the twelve furlongs that they fade and allow the closers to make dramatic runs to win the race.  However, that conclusion is far from accurate.

 

Of the three Triple Crown races, the Belmont is the leg in which the fewest closers have done well and in which the front-runners and stalkers/pressers have done best.  Since the year 2000, only one deep closer, Jazil, has won the race and the farthest he got behind was 11¾ lengths. Remember, in recent Kentucky Derbies horses have closed from more than 20 lengths behind. Five deep closers have won at Churchill Downs. In the Preakness there were only two deep closers.

 

 

Last year in the Belmont it seemed like Union Rags made a big run to win the race, but in fact the most he got behind was four lengths and with a quarter mile to go, he was only one length behind.

 

Secretariat’s campaign was the greatest example of how running style needs to change to suit each of the Triple Crown Races. Through most of his early races Big Red came from off the pace, and in the beginning of the Derby, he was about 10 lengths behind the leaders. In Baltimore Ron Turcotte had him much closer in the early stages of the Preakness, where he only fell back to fourth place. Secretariat’s run in the Belmont was legendary.  He was on the lead at every call, while setting an unprecedented pace and ultimately the world record time of 2:24.

 

Biographer Bill Nack described Secretariat’s tremendous performance, “Secretariat ran flat into legend, started running right out of the gate and never stopped, ran poor Sham into defeat around the first turn, and down the backstretch and sprinted clear, opening two lengths, four, then five.  He dashed to the three-quarter pole in 1:09 4/5, the fastest six-furlong clocking in Belmont history.”  

 

This year is the 40^th anniversary of Secretariat’s Triple Crown, in which he displayed the perfect running styles for all three races. It is only appropriate that this series of blogs ends with the video of Big Red’s iconic Belmont victory.