All In The Family

- If you go to this page on Darley’s site, you can see, for any given day, all the horses running worldwide under any of the entities and individuals associated with one or the other members of the ruling Maktoum family of Dubai. Their juggernaut at Belmont continued after four Maktoum-owned horses triumphed on Belmont Day.

On Sunday, Calla Lily (Pulpit) graduated on the grass for Darley and Tom Albertrani. And on Wednesday, Godolphin made it three in a row and four out of seven at Belmont as Ashkal Way won his second of two turf races of the meeting and in this country, capping a furious rally with a nose decision in a wild five horse blanket finish. This four-year old gelding is a son of the Irish-bred grade 1 (French) stakes winner Ashkalani (Soviet Start). He’s related to Flower Alley – his second dam is a half sister to Princess Olivia, his dam.

A nice return to the races for Awesome Twist (Awesome Again) for John Kimmel; in his first race since October, he rallied from second to last to a three length win over 4-5 favorite Rumspringa in 1:15.98, final sixteenth 6.25 seconds. You may recall that last year, at three, Awesome Twist was sent off as the 8-5 favorite in the G3 Lone Star in just his 4th career start, following dominating wins in maiden and entry-level allowance races. Except for a romp in the mud at Saratoga last August (his Tomlinson is off the board at 432), he hadn’t flashed winning form in three other starts, and was up the track in the Jerome and Perryville last fall.

Watch out for him at Saratoga for sure, especially on a wet track. He has that muddy win and a second in two starts there. Both his sire and his dam won Grade 1’s at the Spa – Awesome Again took the Whitney, and Twist Afleet took the Test.

Rumspringa was coming off an impressive return of his own last month, winning with a lifetime best Beyer of 103 in his first start since the fall. In that race, he defeated Godolphin’s Safsoof, one of their two winners on Saturday. But he settled for second here for trainer Barclay Tagg, who earlier took the third with Stormy Kiss (Bernstein). This four-year old filly won Grade 1 sprint stakes in Brazil, and was making her second start in the U.S.; she debuted with a fifth place finish in a stakes at Delaware. Here, Stormy Kiss, bet down to 6-5 favoritism, drew away in the stretch to a dominating win in 1:09.35.

And Kimmel swept the late double with Awesome Twist and King Hoss, the latter taking a 45K maiden claiming race on the turf. He finished 4th as the favorite in Highland Cat’s breakthrough performance on the turf. Highland Cat is reported to be training well, and is still being pointed for a mile and a quarter maiden special on the grass a week from Saturday.

- Your Tent Or Mine is done for the year. He’ll have surgery, but Neil Drysdale said “...he'll be fine." So he’s obviously out of Saturday’s Affirmed Stakes, but Cause To Believe, Point Determined, and AP Warrior are in. Bob and John’s Belmont was the latest failure of California-based three year olds to break into the national spotlight, but these will be amongst their own this time, and it's an appealing matchup. That will be the final race of four to be televised on ESPN, if, that is, the College World Series game that precedes it doesn’t go 19 innings. Preceding the Californian will be the Stephen Foster and Fleur de Lis from Churchill, and the Ogden Phipps from Belmont.

- Contrary to earlier reports, Kiaran MacLaughlin told the Newark Star Ledger of Jazil: “I'd imagine we'd run in either the Haskell or the Jim Dandy before the Travers."