|
|
BELMONT STAKES THEY SAID IT JUNE 8, 2013 "I don't think it will accelerate my retirement. I'll put it that way. And I have cut back. We used to carry 65 horses. We've got 30, 35 now, and I'm going to just play it as it comes along. I enjoy what I do. God knows I've had the most wonderful life a human being could have, and this is a great chapter in it. And so I'm not in any hurry to do anything but keep on doing what I'm doing. As I have said, I don't want to chase any rabbits I can't catch." —Dogwood Stables' Cot Campbell on the possibility of retiring now that he's got a second classic victory "I was just hoping that he would have an absence of bad luck. And not necessarily get a good break, but just don't have anything go against us. We had trouble in Louisiana. We didn't do good in the Derby and God knows we went good today. I think the real key, he was relaxed. It was actually, I thought, for a Belmont, pretty keenly run, first part of the race. But the main thing was, (jockey) Mike (Smith) was able to get him to a real comfortable rhythm. The horse had trained really impressively, and we just felt if we could get him into that rhythm, get him relaxed, it wouldn't necessarily matter if he was on the lead, fourth, fifth. Wherever he was, it wouldn't matter as long as Mike had him in that big gallop he had." —trainer Todd Pletcher after saddling Palace Malice to victory in the 145th running of the Belmont Stakes "You know, what's really gratifying more for me about the job is that I have something that you can share with your friends and family, and you know, having my dad here and my whole family here, and my best friend from college came today, him and his wife, roommates in college. So they came in." —Pletcher "I feel just as excited about this one and for all the reasons I just talked about but you know I felt like to me that Rags to Riches was sort of getting the monkey off your back. Hadn't won a classic up to that point, we had opportunities in the Derby, few in the Preakness the Belmont. We hadn't won one yet. After a little while, it started to build on you a little bit. I felt like it was tremendously exciting but also a relief. This one was just exciting." —Pletcher when asked to compare this Belmont win with Rags to Riches' 2007 victory "He certainly got a lot out of the Derby. I meant he went quick enough. And he ran a sneaky race in the Derby. It wasn't like he just folded at the quarter-pole and just everybody went by him. I mean, he was actually stealing the race at the eighth-pole. You take into consideration he never once took, never got a second breath of air running that fast. He ran incredibly well. Today, that's all he did. I mean, it seemed like every 10 strides he would just fill up with air again, there he'd start. It's a beautiful rhythm. That's all it was, was getting him into that rhythm. Certainly bred to go the distance. All along, Todd always told me he's got it in him." —jockey Mike Smith after piloting Palace Malice in the "Test of the Champion" "Experience and extremely talented horse. I was just blessed, again, to be part of it and to have ridden so many years in the Belmont. I think Gary Stevens put it best when he said, it's like the ocean. You can get lost, if you don't know it. And these are my waters. I know where the fish are at." —Smith, who has now won or hit the board in the last four Belmonts he's ridden in, including victory in 2010 with another 13-1 shot in Drosselmeyer "I was really happy with his performance today. Anytime you could hook into a field with that much parity and that many good horses...he performed as well as we could have expected. I was happy for Todd, as he is obviously well-connected with us, and I'm happy for Cot Campbell as well." —Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas after his Preakness winner Oxbow finished second in the Belmont "He will get better with maturity, especially as he gets older. He's a big, growthy horse and those horses like him struggled a bit today." —Lukas on Belmont 10th-place runner Will Take Charge "I had a good trip around there, he just never really engaged. I think he was covered up for a while. It might have discouraged him steadily eating that dirt. In the past, when I've had success with him, I've been able to free him up from some of that. They all take some dirt. He just couldn't make the run. He didn't fire at the end." —jockey Jon Court describing his ride aboard Will Take Charge
 Send this article to a friend
|
|
