Forever Young, Stars And Stripes, Baeza

On paper, the 2026 Jockey Club Gold Cup seemed to have just one strange wrinkle in that the (15-1) William Mott-trained Stars And Stripes bested an seemingly lost and confused (5-2) William Mott-trained Baeza to place at the wire, while heavy favorite Forever Young, who had gone off at an eye-wateringly low 2-5, won as widely expected. True, as well as taking the victor’s tidy half-million share of the $1-million purse, Forever Young did actually also win his berth in the 2026 Breeders’ Cup Classic with this win.

But the four-horse feature stakes, as the purported jewel of Belmont’s re-opening after its half-billion-dollar reconstruction, was far stranger and more compromised by its three serial scratches than the results showed. Banishing and Chunk of Gold’s connections decided to withdraw from the running earlier in the week in favor of a pointing those horses at a (purportedly, for them) better stakes at Churchill toward the end of the month. It was the last of the three scratches, Render Judgement, who was ruled out of the race by the regulatory veterinarian on race day, that caused the race to have less than five runners in the field, thus, according to the rules, cutting out the show, trifecta and superfecta bets.

As it was, Forever Young paid $2.96, Stars and Stripes paid $5.76 on $2 bets, and a $1-exacta paid the not-enormously-fun $11.47. Okay, if you put a hundred dollars down on it, you’d have a really nice steak dinner for four, with drinks and wine, at Peter Luger on your way back into town.

It was very little better in the running. At post time, the track chatter and the price had subsided a bit on Phileas Fogg, who had begun the day as second-favorite but went off as the third-favorite at 7-2. He bolted first from the gate and led as if his heart depended on in until the far turn, when Forever Young, who had been stalking him, made his inexorable, strong move up to take the lead at the three-eighths pole, a lead that he never relinquished and for which was never challenged. Fogg faded to last, some fourteen lengths and then some behind the winner.

For his part, Stars and Stripes finished a bright two-and-a-half lengths behind the winner. It was left to Baeza, who had a hapless start and actually, for a moment, just seemed like he might have rather wanted to settle back down in his stall for a nap, to try to figure out a way to rally. This he finally accomplished as he went through the motions of getting around the oval and out of the final turn. Technically, it could be said that Baeza beat Phileas Fogg, but despite that horse’s 7-2 odds giving the appearance that he might stay in the race, after his trouncing by Forever Young, Phileas Fogg was lollygagging fourteen lengths back and did not take a large amount of work for Baeza to beat. Did Baeza accomplish anything in the race? Well, he showed that he could wake up.

The intent was to use the race to open the newly re-built facility, and the place is fine, and the showcase did work, sort of. But, as a gala opening stakes feature, the dismal-looking four-horse field left the track, and the sport, wanting more bright magnetism, more spend, more draw, more effort, more show, more reason to be. After three years out of commission, and a spectacular reconstruction, there was racing, and a bright beautiful day, but it was as if Belmont, now transformed into a sort of great white drydocked cruise ship, had been somehow pushed back in the racing hivemind to a place in history. The challenge is going to be to dig it out of that place and enliven it with sport. It will take time.