 |
| |
|
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
||
 |
|||
EVENTS
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|
 |
Monarchos foiled in Triple Crown bid
Updated: Sunday May 20, 2001 9:10 AM
BALTIMORE (AP) -- Uncomfortable on the track and exhausted leaving it, Monarchos had a dud of a Preakness. Standing outside Stall 40, traditional home of the Kentucky Derby winner, trainer John Ward leaned against the stakes barn and tried to explain what went wrong Saturday as Monarchos lost his hopes for a Triple Crown. "It's not disappointing. You expect these things," Ward said. "I feared coming in that this might not be a match made in heaven, the racetrack and he. There's nothing wrong with the Pimlico surface. He just didn't like it." That became apparent early in the race, and Monarchos was in last place at the half-mile pole. Jockey Jorge Chavez tried to goad the horse into making a move, but Monarchos simply would not respond. "My horse didn't handle the track very well," Chavez said. "After a 16th of a mile, I said, 'Uh oh. There is trouble here.'" "When I asked, he tried to go, but he was fighting the track. He tried, but with the kind of surface, he wasn't at his best." Ward also realized early in the race that this wouldn't be Monarchos' day. The horse breezed to a four-length victory at Churchill Downs, but looked terribly ordinary in his bid to become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978. "Going down the stretch the first time, he didn't want to use his right lead, which meant he wasn't comfortable," Ward said. "When he hit the turn at the half-mile pole, he just didn't go anywhere. He just kept hanging and hanging. That's his favorite part of running." Upon taking the horse to the stall, Ward noticed that his horse appeared to be unusually tired. "We'll go over him good, scope him later on, all those things that you do to horses that don't run up to your expectations," Ward said. "He was a tired horse coming back. "He was trying to run hard; he just wasn't going anywhere," Ward said. "We've all had those days." Asked if he would enter Monarchos in the Belmont, Ward said it was far too early for him and owner John Oxley to commit to the race. "I'd think long and hard about running the Belmont any time," Ward said. "We'll see what Mr. Oxley wants to do. We'll go to New York and see how the racetrack is."
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
