Belmont Stakes (Group 1)

BRAD Cox remembers the time and place when he pegged Essential Quality for one of America’s greatest races.

“With him being a Tapit, it always kind of jumps,” Cox said. “The first time I saw him, I remember where he was, right in the middle of a barn at Keeneland (in late spring). It was just like, ‘wow, that’s a pretty good-looking horse.’

“He’s a good looking horse and the Tapit gives you confidence in the Belmont and a mile and a half. There’s no doubt about it.”

Cox called Essential Quality his “Belmont horse” almost from Day 1.

The colt out of Godolphin’s Grade 3-placed and $253,900-earning Elusive Quality mare Delightful Quality came into last Saturday’s 153rd running of the Belmont Stakes already with a championship on his resume following an unbeaten season at two highlighted by his win in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland.

He left Belmont Park, which hosted a fun-loving purposely reduced crowd of 11,238, Monday with a serious leg up toward another title following a gritty win over the game Hot Rod Charlie in the $1.5 million Belmont.

Body of work

“With the body of work this colt has done, the numbers he’s received and the way he’s stepped up, he’s so consistent,” Cox said. “Like Jimmy (Bell, Godolphin USA president) said earlier, he’s never run a bad race. He’s the champion right now, until he can be knocked out. He’s the champion. He holds the belt.”

Hot Rod Charlie, third and one spot ahead of Essential Quality five weeks before in the Kentucky Derby, tried to deliver a knockout and nearly pulled it off. Sent off the 9/2 second choice behind the 3/2 Essential Quality, Hot Rod Charlie and Flavien Prat threw it down in the opening portions of the 12-furlong Belmont.

Hustled from the gate – ahead of expected pacesetter and 5/1 third choice Rock Your World – Hot Rod Charlie clicked off an opening half-mile split of 46.49secs that wasn’t too far off Secretariat’s record fraction during his Triple Crown-winning effort in 1973.

They continued to lead through six furlongs in 1m12.07secs and one mile in 1m37.40secs, but only by a head over Rock Your World, with Essential Quality and Luis Saez a half-length back.

The fractions finally took their toll around the far turn and Essential Quality, racing on the outside but not nearly as wide as his trip in Louisville, grinded to the front turning for home.

Essential Quality and Hot Rod Charlie slugged it out through the lane – so much so that the latter’s trainer Doug O’Neill thought he might come back – before the former won by one and a quarter lengths in 2m27.11secs. Rombauer, winner of the Preakness Stakes three weeks before, finished 11 and a quarter lengths back and third of the eight.

Come back

“During the stretch run I thought he was going to come back, honest to God,” O’Neill said. “In my mind he did come back. He gave everything he had. There is definitely a part of me that thought they’d start bobbing heads and it would be whoever gets the head bob. Essential Quality just had more today. Thank God they don’t run mile-and-a-half races often so we should be okay.”

Essential Quality’s victory capped a big Belmont Stakes Racing Festival that welcomed fans back to the Long Island racetrack after last year’s event was run in front of a near empty grandstand and clubhouse, and a topsy turvy Triple Crown that figures to see Derby winner Medina Spirit disqualified for a positive drug test.

Essential Quality also gave Cox his first classic win – although he could receive the Derby victory if Juddmonte’s runner-up Mandaloun is elevated with the DQ of Medina Spirit – and redeemed Saez. He was in line for his first in 2019 until Maximum Security was disqualified for interference in the Kentucky Derby.

He won this classic in his first year being represented by agent Kiaran McLaughlin, the former trainer who conditioned many of the Maktoum family’s leading runners in the Godolphin blue, Shadwell blue and grey and Darley maroon over the years.

“It was so special. I’m so proud to be here and come out with a victory,” Saez said. “It was a pretty nice trip. That’s what I was expecting. We knew there was going to be a lot of speed, so we tried to get a clean break and be right there. I knew he was going to run his race at the top of the stretch. On the backside, he picked up the bridle and was moving pretty well, so I’m not going to try to take him back and go inside when he was running pretty well.

“I had a lot of horse and the good thing about Essential is that he always fights. He doesn’t care who it is, he’s going to want to beat them. I knew he was going to show up at the top of the stretch.”