Belmont Stakes: Cox crosses out Commandment’s Derby

Louisville, Ky.

Two-time champion trainer Brad Cox might just as well erase last month’s Kentucky Derby from his memory if not for the lessons he and his horses would have learned from the disappointment.

He walked into Churchill Downs on May 2 with a pair of last-out Grade 1 winners. Further Ado went from his 11-length Blue Grass score to being the 5-1 post-time favorite to an empty 11th-place finish. Commandment came out of the Florida Derby and had a perceptively imperfect journey to seventh place.

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“I think the Derby has a tremendous amount about getting the trip and getting the setup, and we just didn’t get it that day,” Cox said. “And that’s OK.”

While Further Ado prepares for his cutback to Sunday’s 1 1/16-mile Matt Winn (G3) back at Churchill, it is Commandment who will represent Cox and owner Wathnan Racing on Saturday in Belmont Stakes 2026 at Saratoga.

A $500,000 Into Mischief colt who has earned $1,017,339 from his 6: 4-0-0 record, Commandment has morning-line odds of 6-1, the same as he carried out of the gate the Derby.

“I thought the effort was there,” Cox told Horse Racing Nation on Saturday at Churchill Downs as he recounted Commandment’s 1 1/4-mile journey last month. “I thought he ran well. He put himself in contention turning for home. I didn’t really get quite the setup we were hoping for.”

The plan began to unravel at the start, where Commandment got out a half-step late under jockey Luis Sáez. He raced up the backstretch in the rear third of the 18-horse pack, farther back than he ever had been before. Commandment got within 1 1/4 lengths at the quarter pole and spun six wide into the homestretch. Then at the eighth pole he got pinballed between Ocelli and Further Ado, and he finished 5 1/4 lengths up the track from victorious Golden Tempo.

It was not like the Commandment who Cox watched win four straight races before that, including the Mucho Macho Man, the Fountain of Youth (G2) and the Florida Derby.

“I draw a line through it because early position was not good that day, just based off the result and the way the race was run,” Cox said. “You’ve got to watch the race, the dynamics of the race and the way it plays out. It worked out for one horse (Golden Tempo) very well that day. Right spot, right time. Congratulations to their team, and a couple of the horses ran really well, but once again, we’re looking forward to the Belmont, and our horse has trained well since.”

In three weekly breezes at Churchill Downs, Commandment went a half-mile in 48.8 seconds and then five furlongs in 1:00.8 and 1:00.4.

“He came out in good order,” Cox said. “He showed that in his three works since. I’m excited about what he showed us (Saturday) morning in his breeze and his gallop-out. Physically he’s a well-built horse. He carries his flesh well and carries himself well. I think he’s set up for a really big effort as long as we have a good week.”

Commandment, who will be raced for the first time by Hall of Fame jockey John Velázquez, drew post 7 in the field of nine 3-year-olds. Powershift, the speedster who might set up his favored stablemate and Kentucky Derby runner-up Renegade, is to his inside in post 2.

For his part, Cox tried not to concern himself with that dynamic of the race.

“Look, it’s a mile-and-a-quarter,” he said. “There’s definitely not as far a run to the first turn at Saratoga as there is here in the Kentucky Derby with it being a mile-and-an-eighth oval. We’ll have to just play the break. That’ll ultimately be up to Johnny and where he wants to position him, and hopefully he stays on well.”

If the Kentucky Derby is best left out of sight and out of mind, Cox said a repeat of what Commandment did at Gulfstream Park on March 28 would make him happy and perhaps a second-time winner of the race he captured five years ago with Essential Quality.

“If we get his effort and trip, maybe what we saw there in the Florida Derby, I think that’s an effort that could win the Belmont,” Cox said.

Other than the 2020, when the Belmont was the first Triple Crown race to be run in the midst of COVID, this will be the first time since 1917 that no Preakness horse will start in the New York classic. That resuscitates the idea that a schedule change for these big races might be in order, although Cox was not necessarily signing up for that.

“I’m OK with running horses back in two weeks,” Cox said. “I’ve always said you can get a big effort out of them if you run them back in two weeks. The question is, what do you have after that two weeks and that effort? That’s where the big question lies.”

Cox suggested that the spacing between winter races might be worth re-examining when it comes to mapping the qualifying trail for the Kentucky Derby.

“The point system has changed the setup getting to the Derby a little bit,” he said. “You obviously have to have your horse pretty much all ready to go in these preps prior to the Derby in order to pick up the points to get into the Derby. That’s obviously where everyone wants to be. You put a lot of pressure on these horses from February on. Then we’re asking them to run a mile-and-a-quarter, something they’ve never done, something most of them will never do again, and then to turn around two weeks and try a mile-and-three-sixteenths (in the Preakness). It’s a lot.”

That problem will rear its head again in due time. For now Cox has one more big 3-year-old race to prepare for in these final days of spring. If the Derby really was a toss, then maybe those 6-1 odds will be of value to horseplayers who otherwise might have forgotten about Commandment’s four-race winning streak

“Horse racing has a tendency to lean toward what the last result was and the most recent result and what we saw last time out,” Cox said. “We see that with the Derby preps and who ends up being the Derby favorite every year. Obviously, the top 3-year-old polls, the top horses in the country, whoever was the last shiny horse seems to be ranked no. 1. It is what it is.”

What’s more, the horses who are the object of such thorough examination are oblivious to it all.

“Commandment doesn’t know anything about being forgotten about,” Cox said. “My job is preparing to have him as good as we can have him (for the Belmont), and I feel like we’ve got him in a great spot right now.”