137TH BELMONT STAKES

June 11, 2005

Robert Brittingham

Joseph Lerro

Jan Reeves

Jeremy Rose

Chuck Zacney

JOSEPH LERRO: Joel Lerro, Bob Brittingham, Jen Reeves, Joe Judge. The master man, Chuck Zacney.

CHUCK ZACNEY: Unbelievable. Once again, coming in here, getting two out of three of the Triple Crown legs, fantastic, I guess as I watched the race and I saw another terrific ride by Jeremy; and you know, we're thrilled to death to be here. I've got to give all the credit to Tim. I mean, from day one, he took this horse, took it under his wings, had the horse ready and anybody who questioned whether or not this horse could go a mile and a half, he proved it rather convincingly today.

JOSEPH LERRO: Hey, hey, hey.

JEREMY ROSE: Pretty much ran away from the field. He exploded the quarter pole and that was the game, that was it.

JEREMY ROSE: It was a lot of things, I think.

JEREMY ROSE: I watched this race a couple of years down, seemed like the most patient rides are the ones that win. I had that going into the game and the best horse, that's really what makes it. It's the horse.

JEREMY ROSE: I still feel responsible for that, whether he should be a Triple Crown horse. Obviously, he's the best three year old in the country. He should have won.

CHUCK ZACNEY: Absolutely. We've basically been doing that from the beginning. We had a successful year last year. Every dollar we reinvested in the horses. We're doing the same this year. Like I said, we want to be in this game for the next 10, 20 years.

CHUCK ZACNEY: Yeah, we dug deep in our pockets this year. I guess we probably spent in claiming new horses last year close to a million dollars. This year alone, I believe we spent about 700,000. It's still early. Like I said, we really haven't made a whole lot of money. We haven't put a whole lot in our pockets. We're looking to load Tim up with some really nice horses this year. We've got some very nice claiming horses we got last year. We're ready for bear.

JEREMY ROSE: I pretty much expected it the way he went around the first mile quarter. Extremely relaxed, which is what we were hoping he would do, relatively slow pace anyway. The top of the lane, I figure, you know, typical Alex. We'd be fine. When I turned for home, he gave me that explosive kick he always does.

JEREMY ROSE: To be honest, I was going to wait as long as I absolutely had to. The horse in front of me started stopping. We were picking him up on Alex's cruise control speed. I felt we'll run the last quarter 23, 24.

JEREMY ROSE: I wasn't sure. It's hard to make that kind of assumption that young of an age. I knew he was going to be a very good horse. Whether he would be a Triple Crown horse and probably should have won the Triple Crown, I didn't know that. But I knew he was going to be a great horse and a very good horse.

JEREMY ROSE: One of things I would have like to have done, stay left handed down the lane instead of switching back right hand. I didn't have anything left in my arsenal. I had to go back to the right hand. May have cost me the win, but, you know, that's what I did.

JEREMY ROSE: Oh, yeah, told him, he's the Man. He is. He's a beast. He's a freak of nature. He's made out of steel. He came back just as good as he went in. Amazing animal.

JEREMY ROSE: Having fun. The fans were going nuts over him, ears were pricked. You could tell the difference who the fans loved. As soon as we went to jog off camera, they went nuts. It's nice to see him get that kind of love around here. Anywhere he goes, he seems to be the focal point of the race.

JEREMY ROSE: To be honest, this was a very uneventful race, it was beautiful, perfect trip. Alex put me in the garden spot the whole way around. Save around the first turn, no clipping of the heals to make it exciting for you guys. I like it that way.

TIM RITCHEY: Chuck just left.

TIM RITCHEY: No. He ran a great race in the Derby. Jeremy rode a great race. It wasn't meant to be. Like I said, if one told us in the beginning of March we were going to win two legs of the Triple Crown, he would have would have been ecstatic.

JEREMY ROSE: Yes.

TIM RITCHEY: Well, he showed me a lot. We won the Sanford and broke that state's record, sat for 34 years; in the Hopeful he showed greatness. He looked like he hopelessly beaten, refocused, came back in. I thought there was no way he could win the race. He got up with one. That showed me he was a special horse. That it was a matter of coming up with a plan. We went to the Champagne. He didn't have the best of trips there. The Breeder's Cup was not a good trip at all. He still ran great race after the two year old season. I just sat down and tried to figure out a plan to get this horse through all the preps and the three Triple Crown races, kind of super healthy, super happy, as fit as he could possibly be because of the rigors of all four or five races that he had to go through. And I think the plan worked pretty well.

TIM RITCHEY: Absolutely. I think it's an absolute necessity. I think you don't have that kind of bottom in a horse, you don't get through all great races in.

TIM RITCHEY: I thought Jeremy rode tremendously. He saved ground like we discussed early in the race. He dropped in. He was sitting perfect. The whole field wasn't -- one horse was back a little ways, the rest of the field maybe eight, nine lengths, separating the whole field. I kept saying to myself, patience and Jeremy was patient as could be. You could tell the horse just started to pick up horses on his own. Jeremy wasn't even riding him. When he kind up went outside of Giacomo, Jeremy asked him a little bit and he accelerated and went with authority.

JEREMY ROSE: I don't know. We'll see how it goes. Either way. Regardless what I do from this point on, I got a couple of them. That's nice.

JEREMY ROSE: It doesn't bother me either way. People want to talk to me, I'll talk to them. If not, I'm not going to cry about it.

TIM RITCHEY: He'll relax a little bit. For him, relaxed is just galloping a mile and a half. He's still going to train because you can't just stop with a horse that's this fit. It's not healthy for him. He will probably walk three days instead of his normal two. He just ran a mile and a half, we'll go over everything, make sure everything is fine. He'll start to jog a lot. Like I said, he'll do days here and there. Nothing as strenuous as what he did. We will just kind of let him down, let him put on a little bit of weight, let him relax and grow up a little bit, because he's a May foal. He's behind the eight ball. Younger than most of the horses he's been running with. Then we'll start to crank him up for the Haskell and the Travers.

TIM RITCHEY: Says he's run as far as they make races.

JOSEPH LERRO: Well, as a group, we feel obligated to giving a lot back, and that's means a lot to us to do that. We're so lucky to have this and have this special horse and in order to appreciate, you have to give something back. That's what it means.

JEREMY ROSE: That's always helpful, especially in these races. You need luck on your side; kept us up on the Preakness and gave us a clean trip on this one.

TIM RITCHEY: My thoughts were, the fact there were over 30 lemonade stands at different race tracks, a thousand throughout the nation, no matter what happened in the race, all America was a winner because of the fact they supported something that is so meaningful. I'm very grateful for that and pleased that it happened.

TIM RITCHEY: Am I going back there?

TIM RITCHEY: That's where I live.

TIM RITCHEY: Yes, this horse will probably either stay here or go to Monmouth Park.

TIM RITCHEY: You've got a horse that ran first time out he was two fifths off the track record and five and a half furlongs, came back and did the exact same thing on a muddy racetrack. Broke a 34 year old state's record within three quarters, came back later in the Mountain Valley. He won by a record eight lengths in the Arkansas Derby. Won in the very eventful Preakness where he still ran one of the fastest times they've had in the last six or seven years, finished today going a mile and a half, the last quarter 24 and change, and I am going to run him on the turf somewhere and I think he'll excel on the turf. You've got a horse that can do just about anything.

JEREMY ROSE: Definitely. It was one of those things that happened. Granted, everything worked out the way it did. It made him look great and his athleticism. It put him on a different level than most sources. Neither of us got hurt. It was all right to do.

TIM RITCHEY: This horse is going to run as a four year old, period, end of story.

ROBERT BRITTINGHAM: Whatever Tim says goes.

JOSEPH LERRO: Everybody buy more lemonade.

JEREMY ROSE: Actually, the one thing I remember the most had nothing to do with racing. ESPN did the little thing on little Alex Scott that put everything in perspective on Triple Crown races. Doesn't matter what happens. The worse happens, something get fired. Either way my life nearly wasn't as tough as hers was. It pretty much put everything in perspective.

TIM RITCHEY: I felt that whenever they said horses had to go to the detention barn instead of saying in their stall, I thought I had an advantage right there. This horse is easygoing, if anybody saw the ESPN thing, where he held a baseball glove in his mouth, a baseball in his mouth. He's so cool, he's just so relaxed. Nothing ever upsets this horse. I knew the detention barn certainly wouldn't. It may affect some other horses. I think we would have stood him there in a the hotdog stand five or six hours stand taken it out and he would have run well.

TIM RITCHEY: I think that it should happen. Hopefully we've been a model and hopefully everybody else will find some kind of a really meaningful charity and all the little things on the side of jockey's pants, I think that money should go to any charity they choose. If they need to have five or $10,000 that much, they're in wrong business and not doing what they should be in the Triple Crown races. That's my feeling.

TIM RITCHEY: We discussed it a long time ago. As long as the horse is healthy and sound, we're never going to do anything to submit him to anything that will hurt him. He's too great a horse to do that with. We've already discussed our goals right now are to get through the three year old year, get a break over the winter and run him as a four year old.

TIM RITCHEY: He's got the Haskell the Travers the Super Derby is a possibility and Breeder's' cup. He may face older horses in the Breeder's cup. He's also versatile enough, four or five races -- not like he has to run in the classic. He can run in the turf in the sprint. There's a lot of different things we can do with this horse. See how the rest of the year plays out.

TIM RITCHEY: I don't think so.

TIM RITCHEY: I can't speak for the Smarty Jones crew. Obviously that horse had a problem and he was way too much of a champion, too great a horse to risk any serious injury. That I'm sure that was the decision behind him. John Servis is a good friend of mine. I know he feels like me, if his horse was healthy I know he would have been running as four year old. In the same circumstances, if something serious comes up with this horse, you can't put a horse like this in jeopardy. He's just too valuable. I couldn't do it.

TIM RITCHEY: Yes he is. First 12 days of his life he proved right there he was a survivor.