It would not be the Belmont Stakes without a fly in the ointment to confuse horseplayers searching for the winner. The snag in this Saturday’s Belmont is easily identified: Master of Hounds, the Irish shipper.
What to make of him? Nobody can be sure what to expect of this colt who dropped out of the skies Tuesday from Ireland and will go up against 11 of the best surviving 3-year-olds in America. On dirt.
He could be the surprise of the day or the dud of the season.
His chances were canvassed yesterday at the Belmont draw, an occasion that vividly recalled the Belmont glamour days of yesteryear when Patrice Wolfson was a surprise guest. Wolfson, and her late husband, Louis Wolfson, bred, owned and raced one of the turf giants of the 20th Century, the last Triple Crown winner, Affirmed, in 1978.
There is no Affirmed in this Belmont, but it is still a very attractive renewal with eight Kentucky Derby horses coming back for another donnybrook.
One of them is Master of Hounds and nobody is more pumped up over his chances than T. J. Comerford, an assistant to the horse’s trainer, the renowned Aidan O’Brien. Comerford’s word at the draw: watch out.
Ordinarily, Master of Hounds would not be worth a second look. He has won just one race, a little seven-furlong maiden on turf at — hold your laughter — Tipperary. That’s right, Tipperary. He’s the Tipperary Terror.
Now if a horse with these modest credentials can come into Belmont and whip America’s best 3-year-olds over 1½ miles on dirt, then this year’s crop, already dismissed by some as inferior, might be worse than first thought.
But this is the year of upsets, when all the traditional turf tenets have been trampled on. Maybe Master of Hounds could be the latest exhibit.
T.J. Comerford certainly thinks so and said he believes Master of Hounds is a potential blowout at the mile and a half.
Though Master of Hounds ran sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Churchill Downs last November, Comerford said, “He has been pointed all along for the Belmont.”
With that in mind, the horse has trained exclusively on synthetic and wood chip tracks. In late March he was flown to Dubai for the UAE Derby on a synthetic track. He was beaten by a head.
Encouraged, his owner, Mrs. John Magnier, of the international Coolmore racing juggernaut, then flew him to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby. He ran a slam-bang fifth that surprised a lot of people.
But not his jockey, Garrett Gomez. He jumped off and told O’Brien, “I want to ride this horse back in the Belmont.”
Done deal. Gomez will be back on him Saturday. It was the Master of Hounds powerful finishing kick in the Derby that got the Irish guys pepped up. They wondered: What’s he going to do when he gets his legs into a mile and a half?
“Most of our horses are trained for a mile and a half,” Comerford said. “We could have run this horse in the Irish 2000 Guineas and won it, but he has been trained for [Belmont] all along.
“He looks better now than he ever has,” he added. “We’re here for a reason, and because we think he has a good chance.”
For the skeptics, Comerford suggested they take a close look at the finish of the Kentucky Derby.
“Can you tell me,” he said, “where Master of Hounds would have finished in the Derby if they had to go another two and a half furlongs? Down the straight [stretch] he was in and out, in and out, and he passed four horses. Where would he have been two and a half furlongs later?
“He finished faster than any horse in the race.”
Coolmore, O’Brien, Gomez are a formidable combination. Now it’s up to Master of Hounds to prove whether he is Tipperary’s terror — or tabby.