Essential Quality, Rombauer highlight accomplished field for Saturday’s 153rd G1 Belmont Stakes
At 0h01, on June 3, 2021 • By BELMONT PARK
A talented group that includes an Eclipse Award winner and an American Classic victor will comprise an eight-horse field for the 153rd running of the Grade 1, $1.5 million Belmont Stakes presented by NYRA Bets on Saturday at Belmont Park, marking the third and final leg of the Triple Crown.
Saturday’s loaded 13-race card will feature nine graded stakes and eight Grade 1 contests, including three Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” races in the $1 million Hill ‘N’ Dale Metropolitan Handicap for 3-year-olds and up [Dirt Mile]; the $500,000 Ogden Phipps [Distaff] for fillies and mares 4-years-old and up; and the $400,000 Jackpocket Jaipur [Turf Sprint] for 3-year-olds and up on the turf.
The Belmont Stakes is carded as Race 11 with a post time of 6:49 p.m.
Fans will get to see a field that includes Godolphin’s Essential Quality, who won last year’s Grade 1 Breeders Futurity and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile en route to locking up champion 2-year-old colt honors and garnering an Eclipse Award for conditioner Brad Cox as champion trainer.
Essential Quality, the 2-1 morning-line favorite, started his career 5-for-5, notching four graded stakes scores, including the Grade 3 Southwest in February at Oaklawn Park and the Grade 2 Blue Grass in April at Keeneland to start his sophomore campaign. The Tapit colt ran a competitive fourth in the Kentucky Derby in his lone non-winning effort but still tallied a career-high 100 Beyer Speed Figure for finishing one length shy of winner Medina Spirit.
“He ran what I thought was a winning race in the Derby; he didn’t have the trip, but he showed up and he’s been improving in every start,” said Cox, who will be saddling his first Belmont Stakes contender. “I’m confident that he can handle the mile and a half. Just based off his works and his races, he’s very steady and doesn’t seem to get tired. He has a tremendous amount of stamina that I think he was just blessed with based on his pedigree.
Essential Quality drew post 2 and will again have the services of jockey Luis Saez, who will be looking to win his first American Classic. Saez’s closest finish in a Triple Crown race came in 2018 when Bravazo was the Preakness runner-up.
John and Diane Fradkin’s homebred Rombauer enters off his impressive 3 1/2-length win in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness on May 15 at Pimlico Race Course and will look to become the first horse to complete the Belmont-Preakness Double since Afleet Alex in 2005 [both American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018 were victorious in all three legs to become the 12th and 13th respective Triple Crown winners].
Rombauer, who won the El Camino Real Derby in February on the Golden Gate Tapeta, has already earned a reputation as a versatile threat, posting wins on dirt, turf and synthetic surfaces while earning stakes placing at four different racetracks, including second to Get Her Number in the Grade 1 American Pharoah in September and third in the Grade 2 Blue Grass in his final tuneup before the Preakness.
Flavien Prat rode Rombauer in his Preakness win but will have the call on Hot Rod Charlie in the Belmont Stakes. McCarthy didn’t have to scour the country for a qualified rider, as Hall of Famer and two-time Belmont Stakes-winner John Velazquez will provide his expertise, breaking from post 3.
