Belmont Stakes 2011 Betting - Icing The Win
He came, he saw, he conquered but Ruler on Ice got plenty of sports betting help on his way to the Belmont Stakes score, notably a sealed sloppy track, a speed-conducive surface, and a horrible trip for the favorite Animal Kingdom.
The :49.08 and 1:14.51 splits were very similar to the pace that allowed last year’s Belmont winner Drosselmeyer to win going away as Ruler on Ice recorded a career best 100 Beyer figure.
Drosselmeyer was clocked in 2:31.57 last year on a fast track with a 94 Beyer while Ice finished in 2:30.88 on Saturday.
Ruler On Ice was wearing blinkers for the first time, which his trainer Kelly Breen said was important to get the gelding to focus.
Breen: “(Blinkers) was part of the maturity. He didn’t mature as fast as we wanted to. He’s already a gelding so we can’t castrate him again, so we put blinkers on. The first time out of the gate, Jose was on him. He was still goofing off and didn’t break great. Last week, he broke right and it’s like sometimes, the bulb just goes on. It was a perfect storm of things going right, and that’s how we got here.”
For Animal Kingdom, it couldn’t have been a worse start. The Derby winner bumped with Mucho Macho Man few strides after the start, causing him to stumble badly and Johnny Velazquez to lose the left iron.
Velazquez said he had been forced to ask more from Animal Kingdom than he had wanted particularly between the half-mile pole and the quarter-pole.
The look of Animal Kingdom’s trainer Graham Motion on the telecast told the whole online casino wagering story. It was gut wrenching watching him and his family agonize over the bad luck at the break.
Motion: “It looks like he was pinched by the horses on either side. The horse almost fell down. Johnny couldn’t believe the horse stayed up. He lost his iron. It took him until halfway around the turn to get his foot back in the iron. It’s disappointing not to give the horse a chance to run his race.”
Animal Kingdom ended up finishing behind Nehro and Shackleford, who were fourth and fifth, respectively.
Jose Valdivia rode Ruler on Ice and he is a much-underrated rider. People betting horses get their money worth when they gamble on Jose.
Those that believed in Ice got paid.
The winner paid $51.50, $26, and $13.60. Stay Thirsty finished second and paid $19.40 and $10.80. Brilliant Speed was third. A $2 exacta paid $928, the $2 trifecta paid $8,268, and the superfecta paid $74,052.
Ruler on Ice has only run one poor race in his career and that was his debut when he was green.
He was wide in his two prior starts before Saturday and he has a right to go on and have a very nice career, as the blood in the family is stellar.
Ice’s half sister Champagne d’Oro is a double Grade 1 winner who has banked nearly $600K taking 3 of her 16 starts.
The logical thing for Ice to do is to get some rest, freshen up and point to the Travers at Saratoga.
The connections of Animal Kingdom originally indicated that they will likely shoot for a rest, then a grass race, possibly the Arlington Million in Chicago. But the spokesman for Kingdom changed Sunday and said they would take a look at the Travers this summer.
As for Kelly Breen, he is no one-hit wonder. He has been a fixture in New Jersey for a long time. He is currently tied for third in the Monmouth Park standings and 50% of his starters have finished in the money.
For his career Breen is a 16% trainer and his starters have earned over $15 million.
Bettors can look for Breen to be live with first timers as his is 18% with debuters the last 5 years but even more potent with runners making the 2nd career start at 25% in a 117-runner sample.
The tip off for Ruler on Ice was the blinkers and in the last 5 years, Breen his popped at 26% with the first-time blinkers angle.
He doesn’t claim a lot of horses but he is 20% with first-time claimers in that same time frame.
On line horse enthusiasts could do much worse than following Breen all summer.
