SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Luis Saez first rode Dornoch at Saratoga Race Course last summer, and afterward the jockey told trainer Danny Gargan: “You have the Derby winner.”
That prediction did not come true last month, but Dornoch made good on his optimism about the horse in another Triple Crown race Saturday, winning the first Belmont Stakes at Saratoga by hugging the rail and holding off Mindframe to spring a major upset at 17-1 odds.
The horse co-owned by former Major League Baseball player Jayson Werth was triumphant five weeks after a troubled trip led to a 10th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby at Louisville’s Churchill Downs to kick off the Triple Crown season. This time, Dornoch sat off leader Seize the Grey — who won the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes, on May 18 at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course — before passing him down the stretch and holding on for a 1 1/2-length victory.
“I would put it right up there with winning on the biggest stage,” said Werth, who won the 2008 World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies. “Horse racing is the most underrated sport in the world, bar none. It’s the biggest game: You get the Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont. We just won the Belmont. This is as good as it gets in horse racing. It’s as good as it gets in sports.
It’s the first win in any Triple Crown race for Gargan and the second in the Belmont for Saez, who said he never lost faith in Dornoch.