Morning After - Part 1

- Closing Argument was the longest shot on the board, over Spanish Chestnut, by 60 cents. He might have been the best horse in the race. He was the only horse in the top 6 after that blazing half mile to stay in the top 6, and he nearly won the whole thing. Amazing. The superfecta paid $1.8 million!

- I watched the aftermath of the race, and as Giacomo galloped out into backstretch, sure enough there once again was Andromeda’s Hero going by. Maybe they need to train him to believe that the quarter pole is the finish line.

- The six furlongs in 1:09.59 was the second-fastest six-furlong split in Derby history.

- Bellamy Road’s jockey Javier Castellano said he had a perfect trip.

"I had a good, good trip. That's what I wanted to do. It didn't work out. Nothing changed from the Wood Memorial. I just didn't have the horse today. Did you see any problem?" [espn.com]

Bill Finley, who says of Bellamy Road: As it turns out, he is a one-dimensional speed horse, replies

Yes, Javier, I did. Your horse got caught up in a pace that would have stopped any horse short of Seattle Slew. But what else was he going to do? Bellamy Road just isn't the type of horse that you can force back to last in the early stages of a race. [espn.com]

- More from Avalyn Hunter of bloodhorse.com on Giacomo’s male sire line.

Giacomo not only avenged his sire, but scored a classic victory for one of the oldest American male lines still extant, that of the 1898 Derby winner Plaudit. Also the male line of the great Dr. Fager, this line has never been large in numbers but has been in the United States since the importation of Eclipse (by Orlando) in 1959. Eclipse's son Alarm sired Himyar, whose progeny included not only Plaudit but Domino, a great racehorse and sire and the progenitor of another uniquely American line that now depends primarily on the sons of the recently pensioned Broad Brush. [Bloodhorse]

- Nice article on espn.com about Mike Smith. His is a nice story that you didn't hear about since no one gave his horse a chance - he's come back from injury and had finished second in the Derby 3 times. He also rode Holy Bull to a 12th place finish in the 1994 Derby, and you heard him immediately tell Donna Barton on NBC that he had avenged that loss. "I felt the lowest you could feel in the Derby," Smith said. "Now I feel the highest." [espn.com] He picked up a little extra compensation as well.

An hour after this inconceivable result, Smith himself held a wrinkled mutuel ticket in his hands -- $200 to win on Giacomo, given to him by the colt's owner, Jerome Moss. That's worth a cool $10,200 -- if Smith decides to cash it. He might frame it instead, because this win was worth more than money can buy. [espn.com]

That would be a very expensive framing.