The Grade 2, $150,000 Dwyer Stakes (once called the Brooklyn Derby) at Belmont Park is usually a consolation prize for 3-year-olds who weren’t quite good or ready enough to win a Triple Crown event.
That’s not the case for tomorrow’s 83rd running, whose field of four includes Preakness winner Red Bullet and Belmont Stakes winner Commendable. Throw in the hard-hitting More Than Ready and Albert the Great, coming off three straight wire-to-wire daylight victories, and the mile and a sixteenth Dwyer makes up for in quality what it lacks in quantity.
Red Bullet, whose only defeat in five starts came when he ran second in the Wood Memorial, will be making his first start since the May 20 Preakness, when he exploded from off the pace to derail the Triple Crown hopes of Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus.
“I’m looking forward to running him,” trainer Joe Orseno said yesterday morning. “With a horse like this, that’s a long time between races.”
Orseno and Red Bullet’s owner, Frank Stronach, have taken a cautious approach with the chestnut son of Unbridled. They skipped the Derby to await the Preakness, then held him out of the Belmont because they felt running back three weeks later at a mile and a half might have knocked him out for the year.
“He’s physically stronger and mentally a little more mature since the Preakness,” Orseno said. “He’s put weight on, he’s doing things at a different level, and I expect him to get even better later on.
“We’re totally happy with the decision to skip the Belmont. He would have been competitive and could have won. But you never know what running him might have meant for the future, and it seems even more right with the horse I’m looking at now. He’s gone forward by leaps and bounds.”
Orseno, however, expressed concern that the stretch-running Red Bullet could be compromised by the short field.
“I’m disappointed,” he said. “I know these are four quality horses, but I’d rather see 10 in the race.
“With only four horses, it’s a jockeys’ race. Somebody could get away with a false pace and steal it. But there’s no way we’re going to get involved in that. I’ve talked with the Stronachs and we’ve agreed we’re just going to run our race, come from off of it and hope we run past them in the stretch.”
Orseno sees Albert the Great on the early lead, stalked by More Than Ready, but doesn’t expect Commendable to show the speed he did going a mile and a half on a slow pace in the Belmont.
“If Red Bullet is running at the end, we can’t worry,” he said. “I’m not making excuses. I totally expect to win. But if he should lose, I don’t think the voters (for the 3-year-old championship) will hold it against him. It’s what he does in the Haskell and Travers that counts.”
Orseno has been sky-high on Red Bullet all year but never more so than now.
“What a physical specimen, just unbelievable,” he said. “When we won the Preakness, I told Mr. Stronach he’s even more special than that. He’s an exceptional, exceptional horse.”