Notes - May 6

- The 2nd at Belmont on Friday was a two-year old race with all first-timers. Though Todd Pletcher had the morning line favorite with Out of Gwedda (Out of Place), it was Trip to the Bank who took the big money at 9-10 for Kiaran McLaughlin. But in this case, the hot money was the wrong money, as Pletcher’s horse beat the favorite decisively and paid $9 to boot. Trip to the Bank was six back in second, and ran a nice race; but even the most well-meant money can’t always prevent a buzzsaw from spoiling the plans. This horse has fascinating breeding; he’s by Trippi, and is intensely inbred to Valid Appeal 3x2. If he ever catches a wet track, he might swim the butterfly around the track. Trip to the Bank is a half-brother to stakes winner Rocky River, and this is the female family of Preakness winner Louis Quartorze; and hey, there’s only 14 days until that race.

Christophe Clement got beat a neck in a grass stakes run as the 3rd race, but then came back with two winners. His Hanging Curve won the race that Highland Cat didn’t get into, and from the manner and time in which he did so, Highland Cat would have had to improve tremendously to have competed. Clement took the 9th with the cleverly-named Rewrite (Editor’s Note – Fickle Friends), a NY-bred three-year old making her first turf start in her first race since October. Fickle Friends was graded stakes-placed on the grass, and she’s a half-sister to Volponi, the Breeders Cup Classic winner who was also an accomplished stakes horse on the turf. Volponi entered stud in 2004 with fee of $10,000, but was sold last December to the Korean Racing Association for what the former owner called a “significant offer."

- Not many people expect Todd Pletcher to be standing in the winner’s circle after the Derby, but he did so four times on Oaks day. Three of those winners were ridden by Garrett Gomez, who didn’t have much luck riding for the trainer at the end of the Keeneland meeting. In the first, the pair teamed up to score with Alotofappeal, a daughter of the aforementioned Trippi who is also inbred to Valid Appeal, in this case 3x3. And Pletcher took two stakes races, including the Grade 2 Louisville Breeders Cup Handicap with Oonagh Maccool (Giant’s Causeway), taking her third in a row since switching to the dirt from the grass, which is the surface she's really bred for. Last year’s Alabama winner Sweet Symphony disappointed in her second race of the year after a nice effort in her return.