An international field of nine assembled for the Belmont Derby
By the New York Hot List Staff // Friday, July 9, 2021
The $1 million Grade 1 Belmont Derby Invitationalfor 3-year-olds drew an international field of nine. Seven American runners and two from Europe will race 1 ¼ miles on the Belmont Park inner turf course on Saturday.
Bolshoi Ballet leads the European effort in the Belmont Derby. The son of top sire Galileo comes from the highly successful team of trainer Aidan O’Brien, jockey Ryan Moore, and owners from the Coolmore group.
Hard Love heads up the Americans, led by trainer Jonathan Thomas who won this race in 2018 with Catholic Boy. Hard Love broke his maiden at first asking in October at Belmont and then was second in the Central Park at Aqueduct in what was the only loss of his four-race career.
“Some of our nicer horses have broken their maiden at first asking without being squeezed on, which is indictive of their talent,” Thomas said. “Since he broke his maiden last year, the idea was to figure out how to get to this race. We liked him first out, but we didn’t anticipate him breaking his maiden, but it’s always nice when they can.
“He’s done nothing wrong up to this point,” Thomas added. “Catholic Boy was more of a flashy horse in the morning. Turf, dirt, whatever, he always breezed sharply. He was a much more aggressive horse training in the morning. This one seems to be more laid back and is not a dirt horse. They have some similarities, but let’s just hope that the biggest similarity they have is winning the Belmont Derby.”
Here are the Hot List picks for the Belmont Derby:
The $1 million Belmont Derby Invitational (G1), Belmont Park, Saturday, Race 9.
(6) Hard Love raced four times in his career and won three of them with a second in the other race. This year he is 2 for 2 with a win in the Woodhaven at Aqueduct in his first start of the year flowed by an allowance victory in a quality field against older horses going nine furlongs. (5) Du Jour began his career racing for Bob Baffert which included wins in his last three starts – two at Santa Anita and then most recently on the 2021 Kentucky Derby undercard in the American Turf (G2). Since then, he was moved to the barn of Bill Mott who has had plenty of success with his turf runners. (8) Cellist was the recent front-end winner of the Audubon at Churchill against what was a graded stakes quality field. He will have a pace advantage against this group and could well get loose on the lead. Jockey Julien Leparoux will come up from Kentucky to stay on board for Rusty Arnold. (4) Sainthood will make his first try on the grass in here. To his credit he seems like a turf horse. He won his last start in the Pennine Ridge (G3) on a sloppy track in a race that was meant for the grass. This Pletcher trainee was 11th in the Kentucky Derby (G1) after a second in the Jeff Ruby Steaks (G2) on the Tapeta.
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