ESPN Horse Belmont is home sweet home for Tonalist

ELMONT, N.Y. -- As owner Robert Evans started to walk away after accepting the trophy for Tonalist's victory in the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup, he was stopped and asked if his colt could become the champion 3-year-old by winning the Breeders' Cup Classic.

He looked up and said, "Of course."

Then, as a luminous smile filled his face, he added, "And if he does, why wouldn't he be Horse of the Year?"

It surely was a valid point on a day called Super Saturday at Belmont Park, when six stakes with Breeders' Cup implications were contested. Two hours after the richest of them went to Evans' colt, when the undefeated Shared Belief captured the Grade 1 Awesome Again at Santa Anita, the task awaiting Tonalist in five weeks became clear. Win the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic - in the process defeating fellow 3-year-olds such as the likely BC Classic favorite, the unbeaten Shared Belief, Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner California Chrome and perhaps Haskell and Pennsylvania Derby winner Bayern - and a bevy of the most coveted awards may await him at year's end when the sport's champions are crowned.

The trouble with all that, though, could be that the Breeders' Cup Classic will be contested some 3,000 miles away from where Evans was standing.

To become a champion, Tonalist will have to prove he can win a major race away from Belmont Park, something that has so far eluded him.

Yet on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in New York, thoughts of that Nov. 1 showdown in California were merely the backdrop. What mattered at the moment was that Tonalist was in his comfort zone at Belmont Park, the place where he is now a perfect 3-for-3 and has recorded all of his stakes wins.

Three wins sounds modest in size, but it's the stature of that trio that makes Tonalist such an intriguing championship contender. The weakest of them was a triumph last May in the Grade 2 Peter Pan. The gem was his victory a month later in the Belmont Stakes, which thwarted California Chrome's bid for a Triple Crown sweep.

The latest addition to the list, the Jockey Club Gold Cup, is arguably the third most important race of the year in New York, taking a backseat to only the Belmont Stakes and Travers.

In Tonalist's case, winning the mile and a quarter JC Gold Cup in his first test against older horses erased some of the sting from a third-place finish a month earlier in the Travers at Saratoga. He uncharacteristically pressed the pace that day and finished behind stablemates V.E. Day and Wicked Strong, who wound up 1-2. He had also finished second at the Spa to Wicked Strong in the Jim Dandy, his first race after winning the Belmont.

The results were different with a change of scenery to Belmont Park, where Tonalist had beaten Wicked Strong in the Belmont Stakes.

The betting public correctly assumed Tonalist would be more formidable back in Elmont, sending him off as the 3-1 ($8.20) favorite even though he was installed as the 4-1 third choice in the morning line. As it turned out, Tonalist needed every bit of his homecourt advantage to prevail against one of the biggest and classiest JCGC fields in recent memory.

The Grade 1 stakes produced chills as well as thrills in the forms of an exciting stretch drive and a frightening moment on the final turn when Wicked Strong stumbled and lost his rider. Whitney winner Moreno initiated the mishap by cutting in front of the Travers runner-up, who clipped heels and nearly fell. Jockey Rajiv Maragh was tossed, but fortunately fate smiled on everyone. Maragh suffered only a broken arm in the scary tumble and while an unscathed Wicked Strong continued running with the field, he quickly drifted to the to the center of the track, out of harm's way for the other 10 horses.

The incident could have been a nightmare for horses at the back of the pack like Tonalist and jockey Joel Rosario. Instead their biggest problem came at the top of the stretch, when Tonalist was in the midst of a strong rally from 10th but could not squeeze between the two leaders, Long River and Moreno. Unflustered, Rosario guided Tonalist outside them and in the final furlong the son of Tapit forged to a length and three quarters victory in a time of 2:02.12.

The late-running Zivo, who was outkicked by Tonalist in the final furlong, settled for second, two lengths ahead of 52-1 shot Long River. Moreno faded to fourth but was disqualified to last for impeding Wicked Strong. Travers winner V.E. Day was bumped at the start and then steadied during the incident on the final turn and was elevated to fifth.

For Clement, the victory was especially satisfying because of two changes he adopted for the Gold Cup. In a bold move, he ran Tonalist without any race-day medication and also took off the blinkers the 3-year-old had worn in all but the first of his seven previous starts.

"I wanted to show that you can still win race like this with no medications," said Clement, who in August was one of 25 trainers to publicly support a proposal to phase out race-day medications. "I probably should have removed the blinkers before the Travers. He, obviously, was a bit too aggressive in the Travers. Even so, he didn't quit. I love the way that, even when he got beat in the Travers, he went on to the wire."

Zivo won Belmont's Grade 2 Suburban at a mile and a quarter in the summer and trainer Chad Brown was pleased with the spunk his 5-year-old New York State-bred displayed in taking second. He, like Clement and Evans, is allowing himself some time for California dreaming about the mile and a quarter BC Classic.

"I'd love to take him out to the Classic," Brown said. "I think he fits. I have to speak to the owner [Tom Coleman] about it, but I didn't see anything that would deter him from going there. I feel like we have one of the better older handicap horses going a mile and a quarter on the dirt in the country. With that said, he deserves a shot in the Breeders' Cup Classic in my opinion. As long as he is healthy and doing well and Mr. Coleman wants to go, I'd prepare the horse to do so. I thought he ran terrific.''

Perhaps, but on Saturday "terrific" wasn't good enough. Not when he had to face Tonalist over the preferred racetrack that has ignited Horse of the Year aspirations.