Jena Antonucci keeps her sense of perspective after big year

Jena Antonucci did not completely grasp the magnitude of the moment when Arcangelo mounted a valiant charge up the rail to defeat Forte by a length and a half in the 155th Belmont Stakes.

She does now.

After she became the first woman to train the winner of a Triple Crown race, requests for interviews became overwhelming at times. Everyone seemingly wanted a piece of her at once. She became a heroine to older women who had sought for decades to break their own barriers. She emerged as a much-needed role model to little girls who suddenly believed their love of horses could lead to something big.

“Just seeing it through everyone else’s point of view has definitely let it land a little differently in my head,” said Antonucci. “You don’t set out in life, ‘I’m going to do this because no one else has.’ ”

She was only the 11th woman to saddle a Belmont starter in the long and rich history of the 1 1/2-mile race. She executed perfectly to have the son of the late Arrogate, a $35,000 yearling purchase by Jon Ebbert’s Blue Rose Farm, primed to place her in the history books. He did everything right even though the final leg of the Triple Crown marked only his fifth lifetime start.

That was not all. Blossoming Arcangelo allowed her to become the second woman to condition a Travers winner when he launched an overpowering move to repel Disarm by one length in the mid-summer derby. She followed in the footsteps of trailblazing Mary Hirsch, who broke through with Thanksgiving in 1938.

Although Arcangelo had to be scratched from the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita with an injury to his left hind foot that closed the ridgling’s career, the Travers almost surely put him over the top for the Eclipse Award as the nation’s leading 3-year-old male.

“So much gratitude for the journey and for the collective people being so nice and supportive and enjoying what we’ve been able to accomplish,” Antonucci said.

While Arcangelo loomed as a keen contender in the Classic, she took the need to scratch him in stride.

“We’ve said all along horses don’t care about our spreadsheets and what our intentions are and what we hope for,” she said. “This is why I stay focused on the now and not the hypotheticals. Knowing absolutely the right decision was made for the horse has been very comfortable and probably lessened the disappointment of not accomplishing that race because we’re staying in real time and the present and not getting ahead of ourselves.”

Antonucci is making sure not to allow events to change her or the size of her modest operation, which continues to number 30 or so horses. “We are trying to stay true to who we are,” she said. “We’re going to stay with numbers we are comfortable with, and we think can make the team shine. We are excited about some we have in the barn, and we are excited about some we are told are coming to us.”

She said the makeup of her stable for 2024 will feature “a lot of babies.”

Arcangelo’s success provided access to owners who had never considered her before. “As any trainer would hope, you just continue to try to upgrade and continue to work with good people that we enjoy working with and continue to enjoy the journey these guys take us on,” she said.

Antonucci is wintering at Gulfstream Park, as she has in the past. She expects that her improved horsepower will allow her to have a string in Kentucky in the spring and in New York in the summer. “With having the opportunity to have some different stock to manage, hopefully some future stars, it will provide us with the opportunity to place horses appropriately,” she said.

Antonucci was never willing to look very far ahead with Arcangelo, understanding the tenuous nature of planning with fragile animals. She continues to remain guarded in her approach.

She declined to name any potential Kentucky Derby or Kentucky Oaks candidates in her upgraded operation. “We have a couple of nice colts and fillies,” she said. “We are going to let them tell their story.”