Pullover

Not only did Extra Zip win the first, but it looks like Carlos Martin may have pulled one over, getting away with exposing him to the 30K optional tag that allowed him to run for allowance conditions that he'd already overcome. He took a little late money on the nose in the win pool, and won easily under a supremely confident Ramon Dominguez getting the final eighth in 11.86 seconds.

- I guess that if you're going to have a three horse race, it might as well be the first leg of a pick four. Sure wasn't much interest in the win pool, with a mere $106,780 wagered, most of that on the 2-5 favorite Moose Man, who completed a Ramon early double.

- I noted earlier that Contessa was slumping - three for his first 76 starters at the Belmont meeting - so of course he won twice, including Deb's Roof the dead-heat co-winner of the race who, according to the chart, finished full of run to get up in the final stride. Just a minor point here to the chartcaller: "get up" strongly implies, if not definitively states, that the horse "got up" to win the race outright. At least to me. I know you didn't ask, but Got up for a share is how I would have phrased it!

We all know that Contessa is not a high percentage guy; he overpowers his rivals in the trainer standings on sheer volume. But the fact is that he's a solid 12% guy at least (though he's slowly but steadily declined over the last five years from 15% to 12% over the last year). And though he thrives at the Big A, he's still 11% at Belmont over the last two years even including his recent woes. I'd suspect that he'll be much closer to that number than his present Mendoza Line figures by the time the meet ends.