Derby winner built for performance on track

ST is still on the Triple Crown Trail, following Fair Hill-based Animal Kingdom through Saturday's Belmont Stakes. He's at Belmont now, and was made the 2-1 favorite for the 1 1/2-mile race.

Hot enough for you? It’s so hot, people are wearing shorts to the barn. It’s so hot, Animal Kingdom went to New York because he thought he could get a new (York) air conditioner. It’s so hot, horses really were sizzling over the track.

Had Enough? OK. We missed yesterday. Blame the weather, the schedule, the to-do list, the lack of a Kentucky Derby winner/Belmont favorite actually in town. The June edition of Steeplechase Times was delivered to the office and we had to move them around town, had to sort out some business details, had to hang out with 10-year-old Nolan, so we didn’t write.

Back to the Belmont, Saturday’s Triple Crown finale at 1 1/2 miles. Post time is 6:35 p.m. at Belmont Park on Long Island. You can watch it on NBC. Animal Kingdom drew post nine in a 12-horse field for the Belmont and was made the 2-1 favorite by oddsmaker Eric Donovan. Preakness winner Shackleford breaks from the 12 post and is the 9-2 second choice. The others include Derby runner-up Nehro, Derby third-place finisher Mucho Macho Man, Irish raider Master Of Hounds and so on.

But you knew that. That’s news. You don’t read this for news – or you probably shouldn’t.

A few days ago, I was standing at the barn doorway with trainer Graham Motion as Animal Kingdom walked past after a gallop.

I asked: What makes him good, physically?

Motion waited a beat, watched his horse turn the shedrow corner, and said “He’s got a hell of a chest on him, girth on him. That has to help. He seems to have an extraordinary amount of lung power there. When you look at him, his ribcage is pretty vast. To me, just looking at him. I don’t know any of that. He’s a very powerfully built horse. He has an exceptionally large frame to me, but he’s not too big. You’ve got to be athletic as well and he’s obviously very athletic. That all comes into play.”

Animal Kingdom – and most talented Thoroughbreds – blend size, strength, coordination into athletic performance. Experts will talk about a horse’s shoulder, hip, hind quarters, airway, the line from the point of his hip through his hock to the ground; whether he toes in, toes out; if he’s back-of-the-knee or long-in-the-pastern . . . there are as many theories as there are horses. Nobody builds the perfect Thoroughbred, but the best horses get close.

“You’d have a hard time faulting that horse or coming up with negatives about the way he’s made,” said Motion about Animal Kingdom. “He’s pretty correct, he’s got that frame.”

And a chance to be a champion.

The Derby winner will have an easy gallop today and his trainer (and family) will join him in New York for the weekend. Keep an eye on today’s first at Belmont as Animal Kingdom’s workmate Corredor Dela Isla is 5-2 in the $20,000 turf claimer.

PHOTO: The Belmont field. (Sue Kawczynski/Eclipse Sportswire).

Read previous Journal Entries.

Follow ST Publishing on Twitter.