Rosario and Hollendorfer Reunite to Win the Met Mile

It was as if it was meant to be – that Joel Rosario and Jerry Hollendorfer would have a reunion at Belmont Park in the winner’s circle for the Met Mile. When Rosario sent Sahara Sky on his closing drive down the long Belmont stretch and his horse met the front-running Cross Traffic at the wire, it just had to be that the California invader would win the photo finish by the narrowest of margins.

 

It was a very popular victory amongst the Belmont Park railbirds. A notoriously tough bunch of racing critics, they honored the winning jockey with a serenade of chants, “Rosario, Rosario, Rosario!”

 

In the past two years the Hall of Fame trainer Hollendorfer and the now New York based jockey have combined only 21 times with a winning percentage of 29%. When Rosario was riding in California they used to work together on a far more regular basis. After the race I asked Rosario about reuniting with the California conditioner. “He always gave me opportunities,” said Rosario. “In California, when I was doing good, he gave me a lot of opportunities on his horses, and I appreciate that.”

 

In the paddock before the race, Rosario and Hollendorfer posed for pictures with friends from the west coast. Then the trainer pulled out the Daily Racing Form and talked strategy for the race with his jockey. Hollendorfer said, “I told him to watch his pace. We knew there was some speed to set that up, and I told him the horse likes left-handed whipping, so I told to hit both left- and right-handed, and he came running and got up the last jump.”

 

Cross Traffic ran another brilliant race on the heels of his narrow defeat to Flat Out in the Westchester a month ago. The Todd Pletcher trainee went right to front, setting fast fractions of :22.40, :44.68, and 1:09.20. Coming out of the turn Sahara Sky was still in last place in the two-path. Rosario started his move and quickly veered his horse to the outside commencing his drive down the middle of the stretch.

 

Rosario was relentless, giving Sahara Sky steady right-handed urging as Cross Traffic dug in and hung on gamely. They hit the wire together with most people feeling that Sahara Sky had fallen short. The replay on the infield screen made it seem very very close. Rosario himself couldn’t tell the outcome, “I was thinking I won, but it was so close and I was so far to the outside, sometimes it’s hard to tell. I thought we had a head in front, but the angle was different and I didn’t know.”

 

Flat Out came into the Met Mile unbeaten at Belmont Park. Trainer Bill Mott and rider Junior Alvarado felt that a bad trip may have cost their horse any chance at another victory on Big Sandy. “At the three-eighths pole I had a hole and wanted to get in a better position so he could pick it up, and it took a while for him to get that position,” said Alavarado.  “And then the hole closed and I had to check him. That definitely cost us the race. He should have won that race.”

 

Mott said, “He got bounced pretty good at the five-sixteenths pole. No doubt about it, they bounced him around pretty good. I think he had a pretty good head of steam going and a horse came [over] and it looked like he went boom, this way, and boom, that way; he was bouncing back and forth a couple of times.”

 

It was the second year in a row that the Met Mile would have a thrilling finish with a closer chasing down the front-runner, but this year it was a nose victory for the horse coming from behind.