In two of the previous three years, the result of the Belmont Stakes was a bitter pill to swallow for thoroughbred owners Bob Lewis and his wife Beverly.
In 1997 their Silver Charm, after winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, failed to sweep the Triple Crown when he finished second as the Belmont favorite. Last year their Charismatic, also bidding for the Crown, was favored for the Belmont but finished third on a broken leg and never raced again.
Yesterday – before a packed house at Belmont Park of 67,810, the largest crowd ever for the Belmont when a horse wasn’t going for the Triple Crown – the Lewises’ green-and-yellow silks finally found the winner’s circle thanks to an improbable longshot named Commendable, who won the 132nd Test of the Champion by 1½ lengths under Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day.
“The heartaches and trials of our previous runs in the Belmont, a lot of that was erased by this victory,” Bob Lewis said.
Derby runner-up Aptitude, the 9-5 favorite, came from last to be second again under Alex Solis, a length in front of Unshaded, with Wheelaway six lengths back in fourth. Impeachment, the only horse to run in all three Triple Crown races this year – he was third in both the Derby and Preakness – was fifth.
Commendable, like Charismatic, is trained by Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas, who won his fourth Belmont after taking it three straight years from 1994-96. This was the 13th Triple Crown race victory for Lukas, tying him for first with the legendary “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons.
Commendable paid $39.60 – it should have been twice that – to top a $213 exacta after running the 1½ miles in 2:31. It was the slowest final time in five years and the second slowest Belmont run over a fast track since 1933.
For the first time since 1970, neither winner of the first two Triple Crown races ran in the Belmont. Preakness champ Red Bullet defected two weeks ago because his handlers said he needed more rest, and last weekend Derby hero Fusaichi Pegasus was withdrawn after gouging his foot in a freak stall accident.
In their absence, this was billed as a wide-open Belmont. But even then, Commendable was regarded as one of the least-likely winners in the field of 11 3-year-olds.
Although the son of Gone West cost $575,000 as a yearling and was highly regarded as a 2-year-old – “I told Bob Lewis last fall he would be a factor in the Triple Crown series,” Lukas said – Commendable had won just a single race, taking his debut last August at Del Mar.
Since then he failed to finish better than fourth in six straight races, including a 17th-place drubbing five weeks ago in the Derby, beaten 26 lengths. No horse before Commendable ever went straight from the Derby to win the Belmont without a race in between.
“Whenever you say you can’t do something, it drives our organization,” Lukas said. “We feed off that. We love it. I said to Bob and Beverly, we do our best when they don’t expect it.”
But even Lewis had his doubts about running the chestnut colt.
“I called Coach Lukas the Wednesday before entries were taken,” he said. “I was getting a little weak-kneed and asked him ‘are you sure we’re doing the right thing?’ In his own inimitable way, he reassured me ‘absolutely.'”
“There was no excuse for his poor performance in the Derby,” Day said. “But one thing I’ve learned, you can’t count Mr. Lukas out in these major races.”
Lukas said the decision to run was based largely on his study of the opposition.
“The evaluation two weeks out to the Belmont was not so much how he was doing – the horse was obviously doing very well – we were looking at the horses that were going to go in the race. We were not making our decision based on the Derby or Preakness winner. We were looking at the situation as it might unfold.
“We didn’t have any grandiose ideas we could come in and overwhelm this deal. (But) the more I looked at the abilities the other horses had, the more confident I grew we could have something to say about the outcome.”
One edge Commendable had was early speed in a field full of closers. Day, who’d won the Belmont twice before, made good use of it.
Hugh Hefner, the only confirmed front-runner, set a very slow early pace, crawling the first quarter-mile in :24, the half in :49.1 and six furlongs in 1:14.1, with Commendable pressing him in second.
“He was aggressive on the bridle,” Day said. “He was doing what I wanted him to do, to maintain an even pace and stay relaxed. I was a happy camper all the way. When he showed he wanted to go after Hugh Hefner, I let him do it.”
Commendable, who lost a shoe in the paddock and had to be reshod minutes before the race, went to the lead on the far turn with a half-mile to run and quickly opened daylight. First Wheelaway, then Unshaded, then Aptitude made runs at him but never got close.
“He still wasn’t at the bottom of the well when he came to the wire,” said Day. “I felt very good all the way down the stretch.”
The 95-degree heat apparently took its toll on Unshaded and Wheelaway.
“I thought we had a big shot at the quarter-pole but the heat began to get to him,” said Unshaded’s trainer, Carl Nafzger. Jockey Shane Sellers pulled the big gelding up immediately after the race, and Unshaded was treated for mild heat exhaustion with ice, water and alcohol.
Wheelaway’s trainer, John Kimmel, said, “He didn’t finish the way I thought he should have. I have some serious concerns about how the heat affected him because he came back a little wobbly.”