Belmont Stakes 2022: McPeek says Creative Minister is learning

Elmont, N.Y.

Kenny McPeek was still walking to the barn Thursday morning that he is borrowing from fellow trainer Jimmy Bond. His gray-roan colt Creative Minister was walking back there, too, right after a gallop around the main track at Belmont Park in preparation for Saturday’s Belmont Stakes.

“This racetrack is so tricky for horses,” McPeek said. “He’s got to maintain those leads longer than normal. I don’t know that you can teach one of them that quickly.”

He was referring to one of the most basic moves a Thoroughbred must learn to make. Lead with one front foot going through the straight, and switch to the other front foot making turns. Habits formed on smaller racetracks have to be changed at Belmont Park, where the turns are longer and wider and more sweeping.

“You’ve just got to hope that they do it naturally,” he said.

Asked if that was the biggest challenge Creative Minister faced going into the last Triple Crown race of the spring, McPeek said, “It’s a challenge for every horse in the race. It’s nothing that they experienced before or after.”

Aside from that, McPeek said the Creative Cause colt owned primarily by Reebok billionaire Paul Fireman – and 10 percent by McPeek and his wife Sherri – has taken to the track and his surroundings quite well. Even Thursday, when the circuit known as Big Sandy was turned sloppy by a sunrise thunderstorm.

“He looks good,” McPeek said. “He’s maintained real well. He’s a really good, eating horse, which is the main reason I’m here.”

Creative Minister will be making the short turnaround from last month’s third-place finish in the Preakness, which marked his first stakes after maiden and allowance wins – and only 2 1/2 months after his second-place debut at Gulfstream Park.

McPeek, who 20 years and two days ago made history when 70-1 Sarava became the longest shot ever to win the Belmont Stakes, is trying to buck a more recent trend.

Since 2013 there have been 21 horses who finished in the money in the 1 1/2-mile runnings of the Belmont. Of those, 17 had at least 27 days off between races, including 12 who were in the Kentucky Derby. Other than Triple Crown winners American Pharoah and Justify, the last Preakness starter to win the Belmont was Afleet Alex in 2005.

But horses are not history majors. They are creatures of other habits. Like eating.

“We watched him after the Preakness, and he was done within maybe an hour-and-a-half after he ran,” McPeek said. “You can measure how a horse is knocked out by watching the feed tub. When horses eat good, you can’t be scared to run them. When they back out of it, then you need to back off. He’s staying with all the good.”

McPeek is hoping Creative Minister, who is 6-1 on the morning line, gets him his second win in the Belmont to go with that 2002 upset that extinguished War Emblem’s bid to win the Triple Crown. He actually has been borrowing the memory of the last time he had a horse hit the board in the race. McPeek has shared the video of Atigun’s third-place finish in 2012 with Creative Minister’s jockey Brian Hernandez Jr.

“Atigun was in on the rail behind Union Rags,” McPeek said. “My rider took out and went around, and then Union Rags came right up the rail and won. Julien Leparoux rode that day. I thought he took off the rail too soon. He should have just stayed there and waited and saved ground and then let a hole open up.”

The video was McPeek’s example for Hernandez of when to push the button to make a decisive move. Riders, too, have to learn the idiosyncrasies of the 1 1/2-mile distance that is rarely a condition in American racing anymore.

“Brian knows the horse, and he knows his rhythm,” McPeek said. “That’s more important to me than him knowing the racetrack. Even the riders who ride here in New York don’t typically get the chance to ride that distance. Even for them it’s a little tricky. He just needs to get the horse in a nice rhythm and keep him steady and then make his one run.”

That could be the strategy for most of the Belmont field. Morning-line favorite We the People, who won the Peter Pan (G3) on the track last month, is expected to be on the lead with the other seven starters trying to catch him.

McPeek pronounced Creative Minister as ready as he can be for Saturday’s race without so much as a worry that it is coming so soon after a strong finish to more than make back the $150,000 that McPeek and his partners put up to supplement him into Preakness.

“I didn’t breeze him in between the Derby day (win) and the Preakness,” McPeek said. “I just used it as a run. I think he’s fine. I think he’s good to go.”