Belmont Crowns Ruler

By Staff Report June 12, 2011

The 2011 Triple Crown season was all about the underdogs, with yet another longshot, Ruler On Ice, winning the 143rd Belmont Stakes June 11. The 24-to-1 shot broke the wire three-quarters of a length ahead of Stay Thirsty.

Shackleford, who three weeks earlier won the Preakness Stakes as a 12-to-1 shot, finished fifth. Animal Kingdom, who won the Kentucky Derby at 20-to-1, was the Belmont favorite, with 2-to-1 odds, but finished sixth. The horse was lucky to have finished unharmed, having stumbled early on in the race after clipping heels with Mucho Macho Man. The mishap, which occurred shortly after leaving the gate, nearly unseated jockey John Velazquez, who was tossed far back in the saddle and lost his left stirrup, regaining it a sixteenth of a mile later.

Ruler On Ice bested a field of 12 to claim victory in the $1 million Belmont, the longest race in the Triple Crown series at one-and-a-half miles. The fact that he is known as a “mud lover” gave him an advantage on the very sloppy track. Despite the drizzly weather, a crowd of 55,779 turned out at Belmont Park, Long Island, to watch the contest. Winning time was a slow 2:30.88.

The Ice king is owned by financial manager George Hall and his wife Lori, who have a stable of 24 Thoroughbreds in training with Kelly Breen. Hall’s the Clinton Group manages an estimated $6.6. billion in capital. Breen was little-known, outside of being the leading trainer at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J. for 2004 and 2005, before the Halls hired him in 2007. The Belmont marked the first Grade 1 stakes victory for Breen, as well as for the horse.

Jockey Jose Valdivia, Jr., 36, hails from Peru, where he got his start working for his father, grooming and exercising horses. Valdivia is credited with playing a pivotal role in the development of late blooming Ruler on Ice, who insiders describe as quite a handful.

The horse was gelded early on in an effort to calm him, but is still known as a something of firecracker. After kicking dents into the wall of his trailer when being shipped from New Jersey to Maryland earlier in the year, he was reportedly transported to the barn at Belmont with “an attendant who petted and comforted him throughout the trip,” according to USA Today racing writer Tom Pedulla, who went on to report that “When the youngster trains, he must be the first horse on the track. He resents any variation from that routine.”

Ruler on Ice did not compete in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, lacking enough graded stakes earnings to qualify for the Derby. His victory marks the third year in a row that different horses have won each of the three Triple Crown races.

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