SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Renegade didn’t generate the kind of buzz a talented Todd Pletcher-trained 2-year-old typically does when he debuted at Saratoga last August. Certainly, nobody was talking about him after he got beat 18 1/4 lengths by It’s Our Time, who ran a freaky kind of race winning by 17 3/4 lengths.
Pletcher wasn’t discouraged. He had told owner Mike Repole going into the race there was something about this son of Into Mischief that he liked and he wasn’t dismayed afterward.
“I said he’s kind of a gritty little colt, he’s going to improve when he stretches out,” Pletcher remembers telling Repole. “You think you get beat by whatever he got beat by and you’d be disappointed, but he drew the rail that day, that horse that won freaked. He ran better than it’s going to look on paper.”
Ten months later, Renegade is back at Saratoga, where on Saturday he will likely start as the favorite in the $2 million Belmont Stakes, the last of three to be run in Saratoga – and at 1 1/4 miles – while a reconstruction project at Belmont Park continues.
The grit that Pletcher saw in Renegade last summer has been seen throughout his career, most recently in the Kentucky Derby where, after getting bumped around at the break while starting from the rail, he finished a neck behind Golden Tempo, who is among the nine horses entered in the 158th Belmont Stakes.
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Renegade will try to give Pletcher a fifth Belmont Stakes victory. Mo Donegal won the 2022 Belmont after he encountered trouble breaking from the rail in the Kentucky Derby and finished fifth.
“Mo Donegal, you could tell he was running out of time,” Pletcher said. “This horse actually stuck his nose in front at some stage, so kind of the whole emotions from the start where you’re like everything we feared might happen happened in the first sixteenth. Then you feel like you’re in an impossible spot, then you recover and you start to make that move.
“You go from thinking you have no chance and then inside the eighth pole thinking you might win.”
Pletcher said it took Renegade a good two weeks to get over the Derby, but he believes the horse who won the Sam Davis at Tampa Bay Downs in February and the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park in March is ready for another top effort.
“Historically, the five weeks has worked well for us, and from what I’m seeing physically from him, his energy level on the track, I think he’s back to himself and back to where he was,” Pletcher said.
Renegade is one of two horses Pletcher entered in the Belmont. Powershift, coming off just a maiden victory May 2 at Churchill Downs in his third career start, may try to steal the race up front under Luis Saez.
“It’s a nothing-to-lose type thing with a talented horse that’s inexperienced but would probably benefit from what’s going to be a favorable pace scenario for him,” Pletcher said. “I think he’s a sneaky 12-1 shot.”
Golden Tempo turned out to be a sneaky 23-1 shot in the Kentucky Derby, rallying from last of 18 under Jose Ortiz to outfinish Renegade to the wire.
Golden Tempo made Cherie DeVaux the first female trainer to win the Kentucky Derby. Golden Tempo, who races for the Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable, was held out of the Preakness to point to the Belmont. DeVaux said she’s seen positive changes in the son of Curlin, both physically and mentally, in the last five weeks.
“He’s a horse that’s always carried a bit too much condition, and we really worked on that going into the Derby,” DeVaux said. “Now, he finally looks like a fit racehorse, really confident in his demeanor.”
With only Powershift and perhaps Chief Wallabee and/or Growth Equity having some speed, the pace scenario looks to be different than it was in the Derby when the opening fractions were 46.44 seconds for the half-mile and 1:10.90 for six furlongs.
“His running style does leave him vulnerable,” DeVaux said. “He’ll come with a run, but there’s a lot that has to go right for him. In the Derby, everything went right. With that being said, he acts like he’s going to take another step forward.”
Chief Wallabee has taken steps forward since he debuted Jan. 10 at Gulfstream Park, beating The Puma by 1 1/2 lengths going seven furlongs. Trainer Bill Mott wasn’t thinking then that he would be competing in two legs of the Triple Crown with this son of Constitution, but he qualified for the Derby on the strength of solid runs in the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby and then ran a solid fourth, beaten three lengths, in the Kentucky Derby.
“A lot of horses wither up after going through the Florida Derby, the Kentucky Derby,” Mott said. “I’ve had other horses who have run in these big races and you start putting that kind of pressure on them they shrink on you. He hasn’t done that. . . . I think he’s put on a little flesh and a little condition since then.”
Mott added blinkers to Chief Wallabee’s equipment for the Derby. Junior Alvarado said while he believes they helped him some, Chief Wallabee was hesitant to go through a hole in the stretch and ultimately got bumped by Ocelli, which may have cost him some.
“I don’t know why he still does that, lugs in sometimes and looks at horses,” Alvarado said. “He didn’t do that down the backside. I’m hoping second time with blinkers . . . I’ve seen a lot of Bill’s horses improve second-time blinkers.”
Mott won last year’s Belmont with Sovereignty and will look to become the first trainer to win consecutive runnings of the race since D. Wayne Lukas won three straight from 1994-96. Alvarado, who rode Sovereignty, will seek to become the first jockey to win consecutive runnings of the Belmont since Laffit Pincay Jr. (1982-84).
Brad Cox won the 2021 Belmont Stakes with Essential Quality after that horse finished fourth (elevated to third) in the Kentucky Derby. Saturday, he sends out Commandment, the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth and Grade 1 Florida Derby winner who finished seventh, with not the cleanest of trips, in the Kentucky Derby.
“It’s going to be a totally different run race than the Kentucky Derby,” Cox said. “You don’t have a quarter-mile run to the first turn, you don’t have to run against 17 other horses. That changes the pace and the complexion of the race as well.”
Chad Brown sends out a third of the field in Emerging Market, Growth Equity, and Ottinho. Emerging Market, the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby winner, finished 10th in the Kentucky Derby in just his third career start. He did lose a shoe in the race and may have faltered late because of that and sitting within three lengths of a strong early pace.
“I don’t think he needs to run too much faster than the Louisiana Derby to be right there in this race,” Brown said. “He ran a good number in that race and just a small move off of that race would put him right there.”
Growth Equity, who won the Peter Pan on May 9 at Aqueduct, and Ottinho, second in the Blue Grass in April, would likely have to vastly improve to be factors in here.
That also is true for Vitruvian Man, who comes into the Belmont off a third-place finish in the Santa Anita Derby for trainer Doug O’Neill.
The Belmont Stakes goes as race 13 on a 14-race card that begins at 11 a.m. Post for the Belmont is 7:04 p.m. and it will be broadcast on Fox.
The ever-changing forecast as of Wednesday called for a 60 percent chance of rain late Saturday afternoon.
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