The final leg of the Triple Crown has arrived with nine horses set to enter the starting gate at 7:02pm ET on Saturday. The field includes last year’s Champion 2-Year-Old Colt Forte, this year’s Preakness Stakes (G1) winner National Treasure, and Kentucky Derby (G1) third Angel of Empire (the only runner not bred in Kentucky) among its runners.
Following tradition, I’ve dug into the bloodstock side of the race to look at information that includes pedigrees, birthdays, and sales prices for this blog. Find out about the runners below.
Last Prep Race – Of the nine horses entered in this year’s Belmont Stakes, four of them are coming into the race off another Triple Crown race with one coming from the Preakness and three from the Kentucky Derby. Preakness winner National Treasure is the lone horse coming in from the second leg of the series, while Derby third Angel of Empire was the highest placed horse coming from the Derby.
It is also worth noting that all the runners raced at least once as juveniles.
Forte was the earliest starter of the group when breaking his maiden on debut May 27. Red Route One was the second earliest starter with his debut on August 6 and his maiden victory on September 5. Angel of Empire won his debut on August 9, National Treasure won his debut on September 3 and Il Miracolo debuted a week later on September 10 but broke his maiden on November 12. Hit Show was another debut winner on October 9, Tapit Shoes debuted on October 30 with a maiden-breaking run on December 3, followed closely by Tapit Trice. That colt debuted on November 6 and broke his maiden December 17.
Arcangelo is the only horse to not break his maiden until his sophomore year. He debuted on December 17 and first visited the winner’s circle on March 18.
Birthdays – February and May are the two most popular birth months for the runners with three runners born in each month. Champion juvenile Forte is the oldest with a February 3 birthday while Tapit Shoes is the youngest with a May 17 birthday. Two of the runners were also born in March while one was born in April (Angel of Empire).
Sires – Tapit continues his domination of the Belmont Stakes here (click here for my story about the stallion). Not only is he one of two stallions with two runners in the race, he is also the broodmare sire of four others. The stallion joined Lexington as the only sires of four Belmont Stakes winners when Essential Quality won the race in 2021. He is also the grandsire of 2020 winner Tiz The Law.
On the other end of the sire spectrum, second crop sire Gun Runner also has two runners. Not surprisingly, both are out of Tapit mares with that being a rising star cross for the young stallion. The 23 runners are led by Grade 1 winner Society with four stakes winners and eight stakes performers overall bred on the cross to put him at 34.8% stakes performers to runners.
Gun Runner’s sire Candy Ride’s runner in the race is also out of a Tapit mare. Candy Ride himself has five stakes winners and eight stakes performers from 25 runners out of Tapit mares led by this year’s Withers Stakes (G3) winner and Belmont Stakes runner Hit Show.
Unbrided’s Song is also represented on both sides of the pedigree in this race. His son Arrogate has a runner while his granddaughter Danzatrice is the dam of Tapit Trice. That mare is by his son Dunkirk. Medaglia d’Oro joins Unbridled’s Song and Tapit as stallions on both sides of pedigrees. His son Violence is the sire of Forte while Medaglia d’Oro’s daughter Treasure is the dam of Preakness winner and Belmont runner National Treasure.
Sale Prices – Two of the runners in this race are homebreds while on the other end, one horse went through the ring three times. Three runners went through the ring as weanlings/short yearlings with Forte bringing $80,000 and Il Miracolo $75,000. Angel of Empire also visited the Keeneland sales ring in November but RNAed at $32,000
Of the seven horses to go through the ring as yearlings (four at Keeneland September, two at Fasig-Tipton October, and one at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga), Tapit Trice was the most expensive as a $1.3 million purchase while Arcangelo was the least expensive at $35,000. It cost an average of $385,833 to buy a Belmont Stakes runner as a yearling with only Il Miracolo (who RNAed as a yearling) selling as a 2-year-old among the nine runners.
Stud Fees – Of the five stallions who had advertised fees in both 2019 and 2023, Tapit was the most expensive stallion in 2019 at $225,000. He saw a slight drop to $185,000 between 2019 and 2023, allowing the $200,000 Quality Road ($150,000 in 2019) to be the most expensive in 2013. The least expensive in both years was Classic Empire, who stood for $25,000 in his second season at stud and stood for $15,000 in 2023.
The average fee for those five stallions in 2019 was $104,000 and it dropped only $1,000 to $103,000 for this year. The two stallions who weren’t included in the calculations are Gun Runner, who is at a private fee this year, and Arrogate, who died in 2020.
Sire and Dam Ages – The average age of stallions at the conception of these runners runs a little higher than in the Kentucky Derby with the average sitting at 11 instead of 10. The youngest was Classic Empire at five years of age when Angel of Empire was conceived. Candy Ride was the oldest by two years as a 20-year-old when Hit Show’s dam visited the breeding shed.
While the sires are trending higher than five weeks ago, the mares are a bit younger. The average age of dams in the Kentucky Derby was 7.5 years old and drops down to 6.4 years here. Just like in the Derby, Angel of Empire’s dam is the youngest as a 3-year-old when Angel of Empire was conceived. Only one mare had a double-digit age with Tapit Shoes’ dam Awesome Flower conceiving her runner as a 10-year-old.
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