We are awfully close to Saratoga and Del Mar, two of the most popular meets of the year. I am sure there will be lots of opportunities on both the east and west coasts. While I am the first to admit I am not a fan of extending these meets and believe less is more and the quality has been watered down, they are still great meets and most of us wait for them annually.

The Wild Applause will be run Saturday at Belmont. I don’t recall a better grass family from back in the day, Glowing Honor, Glowing Tribute, Hero’s Honor. Those Rokeby Stable horses from that line were lawn mowers. Wild Applause fit right in.   Saffie Joseph is once again welcome at Belmont Park and he sends Gulfstream shipper Violet Gibson in for The Wild Applause. She is a well bred lightly raced filly on the improve.

The Triple Crown races are in the books, and it is already Haskell preview day at Monmouth. Moving right along as they say. Before we get to Monmouth let me say this about The Belmont. They came home slow. Nobody the winner and place horses included wanted any part of a mile and a half. At least not at this point in their careers. Keep that in mind when grading the race and the horses

I guess being from New York and attending more Belmont’s than I can even remember the race has always been special to me. The fact I have made some scores on the race probably doesn’t hurt either. The Test of Champions, it even sounds special. This year we have a competitive race with the likely favorite, Forte coming into the mile and a half affair off a layoff since the Florida Derby. On top of