Private Zone Never Threatened in Belmont Sprint
Leaving the gate as the 3-5 post-time favorite, Good Friends Stable's Private Zone comfortably cruised to earn his second graded stakes win of the year in the Grade 3, $400,000 Belmont Sprint Championship, in Saturday's Stars & Stripes Day finale at Belmont Park.
With Private Zone coming out of a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap on Belmont Stakes Day, trainer Jorge Navarro initially planned to wait until the Grade 1 Forego on August 29 at Saratoga Race Course for the 6-year-old gelding's next start, but was so impressed with how he came out of the race, he decided to enter today's Belmont Sprint.
Breaking from post 3 with regular rider Martin Pedroza in the irons, the son of Macho Uno broke sharply out the gate to open a few lengths on field setting fractions for the opening quarter-mile in 22.40 seconds with the half going in 44.64. At the quarter-pole, Pedroza backed off to let Green Gratto come within striking range before once again keeping the Navarro trainee to task and rolled home to prevail by 3 ¼ lengths. He completed the seven furlongs in 1:22.57
"He broke so well," said Pedroza. "He always does, he's such a good gate horse. He's such a classy horse. As soon as he feel the competition, he just keeps going. Usually, if I go to the [left-handed stick], he'll give me even more. But today, I didn't even have to go left. Jorge has done a great job because when this horse opens up on horses, he can have the tendency to wait. Today, he just took off."
Returning $2.70 for a $2 win wager, Private Zone boosted his career earnings to $2,253,120. Satisfied with his performance, Navarro was already looking forward to the horse's next start.
"Good performance, we were expecting this," said Navarro. "It was a team effort, our plans were to give him some time off but he came back so good after the race [Grade 1, Metropolitan Mile] right here. We'll see how he comes out of this first but our next target is the [Grade 1] Forego [August 29, Saratoga Race Course]."
Clearly Now closed to finish second, followed by Stallwalkin' Dude, Green Gratto, and C. Zee.
Bay of Plenty, The Big Beast, and Moonlight Song scratched from the race.
Source: NYRA Communications (Najja Thomspon)