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(Originally published in the June 16, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)  By Eric Mitchell - @EJMitchellKy on Twitter A remarkable array of circumstances threatened to derail this year’s Belmont Stakes (gr. I), yet Thoroughbred racing prevailed, ...

Racing didn't get a Triple Crown winner, but it got a compelling race in the Belmont Stakes. Union Rags was a deserving winner. He showed class and stamina rallying up the rail to beat Paynter by a neck. Union Rags was America's best two-year-old in 2011, and there is still an outside, remote shot he could be our best three-year-old in 2012. ...

In his hauntingly melodic song, “Hallelujah,” Leonard Cohen wrote, “Baby I’ve been here before. I know this room, I’ve walked this floor.”Many of the 85,811 on hand at Belmont Park June 9 had been here before, familiar with every hallowed nook and cranny of this historic structure. They walked its floors nervously waiting and hoping and believing, ...

Here's a quick follow-up to our pre-Belmont post on pace, where the take-home was that flatter pace lines do best in the 12-furlong classic. This year's race gave another example where the winner had the more consistent pace. Mike Smith wanted the lead with Paynter, but to get there they had to run a very quick opening quarter (:23 3/5), one of ...

We won’t even begin to express our disappointment and disgust over the scratch of I’ll Have Another. All we will do for now is kill the paragraphs already written and leave the leftovers. This is what is left of the Belmont Stakes.Dullahan’s last work was the standout, only because it totally fooled us and everyone else. It looked as if he were ...

Approaching the Belmont Stakes (gr. I)—the longest leg of the Triple Crown—why does it seem that those day-and-night distance questions we asked for every starter going into the Kentucky Derby (gr. I) are now pushed to the back burner? Now we focus more on the riders, and who has the experience to ride effectively in what is a most unusual ...

.commentForm, .postComments, #comments{display:none;} <a href=''http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=87e9a3ada8'' >Belmont Stakes Live Blog</a>

What do Bobby Frankel, Max Hirsch, and John Sabini, chairman of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, have in common? They have all used Barn 2 on the Belmont backstretch to leave an indelible mark on Thoroughbred racing. The first two gave racing countless thrills. The third gave it a black eye. Yes, we know the implementation of a ...

We taped That Handicapping Show this morning, and I selected Paynter as my key horse in the Belmont Stakes. I'll Have Another clearly has proven to be the best of this crop. But for gambling purposes, I can't take 4-to-5 on a horse trying a new distance. Additionally, I'll Have Another could be worn down by the first two legs of ...