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THEY SAID IT JUNE 3, 2010 "I've been asked that question a lot, and for some reason, I keep getting more tense. I guess it's getting to me a little bit because you're growing up here and you start realizing how much the Belmont Stakes means. It's a Triple Crown race. It's certainly one of the most historic races in the world, mile and a half, and you have to prepare your horse, if he has not won one before. It's a blessing, no question, but it would be great." —trainer Nick Zito when asked how important is winning the Belmont S. (G1); the Hall of Fame conditioner will saddle ICE BOX (Pulpit) and FLY DOWN (Mineshaft) in Saturday's 142nd running "It's nice to train on the track you are going to run on and let him get used to it. But we train here every day, Nick and I do, and it's a great place to train, a great facility, and it's nice that they are working over it and getting used to it. But I don't think it's a race that you have to have works over or a race over. It's a good racetrack, mile and a half, and it's not like a Delaware Park where you don't know if you are going to handle it or not. Usually most horses can handle this track." —conditioner Kiaran McLaughlin on UPTOWNCHARLYBROWN (Limehouse) training at Belmont in advance of Saturday's race "I brought my horse in early because Churchill is a little different than this racetrack. It has a little bounce this year. They are keeping it a little firmer and I wanted to make sure we got up here in time to train on the sandier, deeper racetrack and also let him get used to going around that mile-and-a-half oval. They are on their left lead a lot longer than they will be on most other racetracks. Definitely it's not going to hurt to be here." —trainer Dale Romans, who will send out FIRST DUDE (Stephen Got Even), when asked about the importance of getting track experience before the Belmont "All the press keeps telling us we'll be on a solo lead, and I hope you're all right, and with a slow pace. But things never workout really like they should on paper and if somebody else decided to change their game plan and send from the inside, we are in a good spot from the outside to sit right off them and we won't have any problem doing that. But if there isn't enough space, we will be willing to go like we did in the Preakness (G1), and hopefully not as fast, and just see what happens." —Romans describing the way he would like the pace to set up "Real quick, I'll say the Triple Crown should never change. I mean, that's -- there's too much history behind it. A great horse will come along and win it sooner or later and I don't think they should change one thing about it." —Romans when asked if he thought the Triple Crown series should be altered "I feel the same way Dale does about the Triple Crown, it should be tough. But I think one of the reasons is if you do that study, see if anybody was leading up to the Triple Crown and see how many horses ran in the first two, because the demands of the Triple Crown now are very, very tough. I'm sure Kiaran and Dale will tell you, because I know I have plenty, too, horses that we thought were going to make the (Kentucky) Derby (G1) or going to make the Preakness (G1) or going to make the Belmont, never even got close, because the demands of it now are so tough; the preparations are tough. The horses you run against are tough, and I think that's the main reason. "You know, it's a broken record now, but it looks like you're going to have 20 all the time in the Derby unless, God forbid, something happens the week of the Derby. And I think that's a tough thing today. You know, they keep (talking) about changing the Triple Crown, well, why don't you change the number of starters in the Derby, which is not going to happen, and that's what makes it so tough, because you're competing against 20 horses, not seven, not eight, not nine, not 10; 20, and that's very tough on a horse mentally besides physically. You know, you look at Super Saver (Maria's Mon), and you heard what Todd (Pletcher) said, he said, we don't usually do this, but we won the Derby. You know, you come up short." —Zito talking about the fact that only three out of the last 10 Belmont scorers have exited the race and won again "Two thoughts. I'll be different than them. One is the horses to win after the Belmont, a mile-and-a-half, we didn't have too many mile-and-a-halves to point to Belmont. If you really had a horse that went the mile and a half or a long distance, most had to run a mile and eighth and a mile and a sixteenth. Now, with the marathon and the Breeders' Cup, at least you have a chance to run a mile and a half, you might have a better chance of winning a few races. If you win the Belmont, there will be some better races out there going a mile and a half. "I will go against them and say I would love to see the first Saturday of May (for the Derby), Memorial Day for the Preakness and July 4 for the Belmont. There's three days, two holidays there with big crowds, anyway, and we would have four weeks in between and then five weeks for the Belmont, and maybe we would have a field size that stayed together and horses competing in all three races. And I think that they should have the bonus situation again that would give us some incentive to run. Like Nick said, when Todd won the Derby, he didn't want to run back in two weeks. We hardly work a horse back in two weeks, but you feel the pressure of doing it for the Triple Crown. But if you space them out; if the Triple Crown winner today is worth 40 million, is he worth 35 million if you spread him out for four weeks? At least you would have a chance to keep the field together and maybe have some rivalry between some horses but that's just my personal opinion." —McLaughlin on changing the Triple Crown "I think it's important if you ride here every day, or mostly every day. I think it's very, very important, because you know, you're in the groove. You get in a little zone, too, a couple of days before, or the day before or that day, it's always good. It's always good." —Zito about picking a jockey who is familiar with Belmont Park "It's a unique racetrack, a mile and a half and a unique race going into a mile and a half. I think it's an advantage to us to have a rider that's been here and ridden over this racetrack a lot." —Romans "Ditto what they are saying. I'm just glad that Bob Hutt was a fishing buddy of a very good rider, because he said he wanted Rajiv (Marah) because they had gone fishing together in the past. I said, I'm just glad that it's a top rider, so it worked out well. Rajiv is an excellent rider and we are happy to have him." —McLaughlin "There's not a whole lot that you can do that's different, especially coming off three weeks from the Preakness to the Belmont, just want to keep them happy. Nature makes them fast, we just have to make them fit and they look pretty much fit after running in the Preakness. Just want to get them going a little further and get them used to the racetrack." —Romans on preparing a horse to go 1 1/2 miles "Absolutely. Absolutely. It would have been an unbelievable story. I knew I was going to have a horse in the race, so it would have been great. I'm sure Dale and Kiaran feel the same way; they would like to be the spoiler. And let's face it, it's great for racing. I would say all of us in this room are racing fans first. So you would love to see the Triple Crown. Of course, if we weren't going to win the Preakness, we would have loved to have seen Super Saver win. I'm sure Kiaran and Dale feel the same way. It would be great." —Zito on rooting for Super Saver in the Preakness "Well, it's a stamina race because you've got to be able to make the mile and a half. You don't have to get as lucky as you do in the Derby. The best horse is going to win, the horse that's best prepared. It's not that we can make them win it, but we can cost them the race, I believe, you know, overdo or underdo something." —Romans explaining why the Belmont is called a trainer's race "The problem with American racing over the last few years is two-year-olds in training, a $16 million horse selling. People have commercialized it so much. People want the fast ones like the Henny Hughes, the fast ones, that can sell commercially. But like I said before, Nick's been buying the yearlings that can go a mile and a quarter for a long time very successfully. So it's two different types of horses and people. But commercially, people want speed and maybe some of the homebreds. I know the Maktoum family would love to have the mile and a halfers because the (English) Derby is a mile and a half, and Sheikh Hamdam said to me more than once. 'Wow, I wish you had more of an endurance-type stallion that we could breed to.'" —McLaughlin when asked about the modern-day penchant for speed horses "You know, it would be great to have more marathon races. There's nothing better than a good marathon race in America. This crop may be one of that's starting to trend back the other direction, if you look at the crop: 44 starters in Triple Crown races in three races, that's pretty phenomenal, 35 horses the week before the Derby were still wanting to get into the Derby. We had 12 come back in the Preakness and 12 come back in the Belmont, and even on the filly set, 14 starters in the Oaks and 13 going into Acorn (G1) on Saturday. This is a hearty group of horses and even with the changes -- no horse running in all three of them -- we had big full fields. The two-year-old champion (Lookin at Lucky [Smart Strike]) ran a lot last year and comes back and wins the Preakness this year, which is unusual. This is a good group of three-year-olds, fillies and colts, and hopefully we have a lot to look forward to out of them and maybe we are turning the tables a little bit back the other direction." —Romans on whether American racing needs more long distance races "They have been breeding horses for a couple hundred years in America, and that was the idea; to try to get them to go that far, try to get them to go that way. It's a beautiful thing, the Triple Crown, there's nothing like it. I mean, it may put more gray hairs on your head, but it's the best thing in sports I think. It's just as good as anything we have got in sports." —Zito
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