I love Tom Durkin, the Belmont track announcer. His sense of timing and drama mixed with his Don Pardo-like stylings are something to behold. I was lucky enough to be in the grandstands yesterday, and let me just say that I have never, ever, ever publicly jumped up & down, hooted & hollered and generally engaged in “sports fan” behavior the way I did yesterday. AND, I didn’t have a winning ticket all day. As a matter of fact, I stunk on ice… hideous. But it was the best day I ever had at the track.

Getting back to Tom Durkin, even on a quiet day at Belmont you can’t hear the announcer, so I had to wait until I watched the race replay (about 15 times now and I’m not even close to being done) to really hear the genius of his narration. Not like that race needed any help but his stretch call was AMAZING!

I’m SOOO happy she won! Interesting because she sort of mimicked Curlin’s Preakness run… she came wide to his inside trip and Curlin stumbled at the gate in the Preakness as well. What a great Triple Crown. It’s shame that casual fans are only interested when a Triple Crown winner is on the line. I feel like I saw some of the greatest horse racing of our time in these three races!

So what happened to everyone else? I’m not surprised by Slew’s Tizzy’s run given that he had never run over a mile and sixteenth… don’t think it’s anything against him. Also, I thought CP West ran pretty nicely. If I had had Tiago in my superfecta box instead of Imawildandcrazyguy, it would have been an even better day… but as I like to say “that’s why they call it gambling.”

Not sure what happened to IWCG and haven’t had much luck digging anything up. Not sure if the glacial pace kept him from getting his motor running or if his run in the derby was an anomaly as opposed to the beginning of something interesting. I really liked his run in the Risen Star and still have some hopes for him in more appropriate company.

As for Hard Spun, I’m a little baffled. He was running really erratically at the start. One report said he was a little rank and giving Gomez a bit of a tough time. Another report said that Larry Jones thought the plan was to keep the pace where it was but to have him in the lead. Gomez was quoted as saying that he thought everything was going well but when it came down to it HS didn’t have any run. One thing I’ve noticed about HS is that he seems to do best when he’s left to his own devices (Preakness notwithstanding, although I still think that was a combo platter of misfortune). Maybe now they’ll have to run him as a 4 year old to get his good name back (although I think he gave it his all)! A girl can dream… and count me in the “fans for seeing HS run a mile on the turf” club.

The undercard was great too! I loved Papi Chullo’s run in the third. Can’t wait to see more of him with his new connections and Cotton Blossom had a great run in the Just a Game!

Tom Durkin had another great moment in the True North as Keyed Entry was blowing Bordonaro’s chances (and mine) by bringing him really wide, “Keyed Entry is taking Bordonaro out to the Cross Island Parkway”.

Ah Belmont, I love you so (and will be back to see Invasor in a few weeks!!).