SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Friday’s Grade 2, $250,000 Belmont Gold Cup is a two-mile marathon on Saratoga’s inner turf course. It may be about as short as a few in this field want to go.
Flatten the Curve, Limited Liability, and Lord Flintshire have all won races beyond two miles – the latter doing so over hurdles and now coming back to the flat.
“The biggest thing is a horse that can kind of switch off,” trainer Keri Brion said of success at marathon routes. “That’s what we do with the jump racing. You’re constantly teaching horses how to conserve their energy. . . . Not quite as much in flat racing because we don’t have [as many] marathon distances. Even the things we have, you see a mile and three-eighths, a mile and a half. Two miles is different. It will separate some.”
Going two miles on the flat, Lord Flintshire indeed upped his game. He finished third in the John Forbes Memorial in October at Far Hills, beaten just a length by The Grey Wizard, last year’s Belmont Gold Cup winner. Forbes runner-up Curbstone also is entered in the Belmont Gold Cup.
Lord Flintshire was then a keyed-up seventh in the H. Allen Jerkens Handicap in December at Gulfstream Park over a track that may not have suited him. He was beaten four lengths in a field that came back strong. Runner-up Utah Beach won a pair of graded stakes in Kentucky this spring.
“He just didn’t finish as well as he could because he couldn’t settle early, and Gulfstream can do that to horses,” Brion said. “It’s a really tight sort of track, which I don’t think suited him. . . . He never dropped the bridle, he never switched off, and you can’t get two miles running that way.”
Brion worked on getting Lord Flintshire to settle while trying to make him eligible to race over jumps at the summer Saratoga meet, a lucrative goal for the New York-bred.
The mission was accomplished going 2 1/8 miles in a maiden hurdle at the spring races in Middleburg, Va. A relaxed Lord Flintshire switched back on late, powering clear to win by 3 1/4 lengths over the well-regarded Risk Taking, a graded stakes winner on the flat. The only jump race at Saratoga this week is a Grade 1, so Lord Flintshire will move back to the flat for now.
“I think the two miles around a track he really likes, I think it’s worth a shot,” Brion said. “He’ll come back over jumps, probably. If he wins, maybe we’ll have a different conversation.”
International traveler Flatten the Curve is coming off four consecutive wins, including a pair of group stakes in Germany, at distances ranging from 1 3/4 to 2 5/16 miles. There is better than a 50 percent chance of rain Friday, and Flatten the Curve, who has won on a left-handed course, would relish cut in the ground. His win streak has come on courses rated from good to heavy.
“I don’t think he will have any problem with the left-handed smaller course at Saratoga or if the ground is soft from rain,” trainer Henk Grewe told track publicity, adding that he “learned a lot” about U.S. racing from saddling Breeders’ Cup also-rans in 2020 and 2021.
Limited Liability was a strong third to The Grey Wizard in this race last year, beaten just a neck in a blanket finish. His strongest career performance came in the Nashville Gold Cup at Kentucky Downs – a 2 1/16-mile race that likely played slightly longer due to the undulations of that turf course. He led throughout and poured it on in the stretch to win by 8 1/4 lengths over The Grey Wizard. He comes in off three consecutive graded stakes-placings, including a second by a head to Utah Beach in the Grade 2 Elkhorn.
Multiple graded stakes-winning millionaires Grand Sonata and Tawny Port have won stakes at more traditional marathon distances and will have to step forward to get the two miles. This also is the case for Anglophile and Padiddle, most recently second and third, respectively, to classy Far Bridge in the Grade 2 Man o’ War.
This main field of 10 will be reduced by at least one, as The Ginger Wizard “came up with an issue,” according to Aron Wellman of co-owner Eclipse Thoroughbreds. There are three main-track-only entrants, chief among those is Timeout, second by a head in the Isaac Murphy Marathon at 1 1/2 miles on the Churchill Downs dirt.
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