Weld Prepares Flying Jib for Belmont Oaks

Dermot Weld's list of accomplishments includes victories in major races in Ireland, England, Australia, Hong Kong, and Germany, and the 65-year-old also is no stranger to the Belmont Park winner's circle, having taken the 1990 Belmont Stakes with Go and Go and 2003 Flower Bowl Invitational with Dimitrova.

On Saturday, Weld will attempt to add a third Belmont trophy to his collection when he sends out Flying Jib in the inaugural running of the Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Oaks Invitational.

Go and Go, victorious in the Grade 2 Laurel Futurity on the dirt as a juvenile, registered an authoritative 8 ¼-length win in the 1990 Belmont, covering the 1 ½ miles in 2:27 1/5. With Go and Go's victory, Weld is the only foreign-based trainer to win an American Triple Crown race.

"It was a fascinating experience," said Weld by telephone on Monday. "It has never been done since. He ran the seventh-fastest time in the Belmont up to that stage when he beat [runner-up] Thirty Six Red and [fourth-place finisher] Unbridled, who had been the Kentucky Derby winner, so it was a very good performance by him. The result was never in doubt; he won effortlessly. I brought him over as a 2-year-old and I won the Laurel Futurity, which, that year, was run on the dirt, so we knew he'd handle the surface."

In 2003, Weld won the listed Leopardstown 1,000 Guineas Trial S. and finished third in the Group 1 Irish 1,000 Guineas with Dimitrova, whom was then pointed toward a stateside campaign. Dimitrova took the second running of the American Oaks Invitational, flew back to Ireland, and then made another trip across the Atlantic before finishing third in the Grade 1 Garden City and taking the Flower Bowl Belmont.

"We knew she could travel very well," said Weld. "She had a very busy 3-year-old campaign. She had broken her maiden in March here. She won the 1,000 Guineas Trial Stakes in April. She ran third in one of the best-ever renewals of the Irish 1,000 Guineas. She got on a plane and went to California and won the American Oaks. She flew back [to Ireland]. She had to go by land, sea, and air: she got in a box, she went on the ferry across the Irish Sea to England and then on to the continent to Amsterdam, and she got on a flight out of Amsterdam to Los Angeles because, economically, that's the way we always went."

"She went by land, sea, and air to California and to New York, both times," Weld added. She won the American Oaks, came back, she got four or five weeks off here, and then she went back and did the same thing [for the Flower Bowl]. She was an amazingly tough for a 3-year-old filly."

Weld has brought a live contender for the Belmont Oaks in Flying Jib, who has won three straight after finishing fourth in her debut as a 2-year-old. After breaking her maiden in her second start and winning the listed Silken Glider in her juvenile finale, she made a winning return by holding on by a half-length in the Group 3 Athasi on May 5 at the Curragh.

Flying Jib - who is by Oasis Dream and out of Jibboom, who in the United States won two graded stakes on synthetic surfaces and one on the turf - will be stretching out from seven furlongs to 1 ¼ miles in the Belmont Oaks.

"[The distance] has to be the biggest concern," said Weld. "She, as a filly, is very well and she traveled very well, but [the distance] has to be the doubt. She was a winner as a 2-year-old at a mile. This is unknown territory for her, but she has given every indication that she will get the trip."

The inaugural Belmont Derby and Belmont Oaks attracted six foreign-based trainers representing four different countries, and Weld is hopeful Stars & Stripes Day will continue to attract international horsemen in the upcoming years.

"I want to commend Martin Panza for having the initiative to put on these races," said Weld. "I think in years to come it will really, really open up New York racing to Europe. Not that many European horses had been racing in New York, but with this excellent money available and great program of racing you're going to see more European horses in New York."