Small gathering of the faithful met and sat in the 3rd Floor stands of Belmont's Clubhouse section. With a newly introduced common $5 admission for anywhere in the track, the Clubhouse is no longer a bit more exclusive due to its price.
Still, there are few people sitting in the Clubhouse stands. Really a few. A good size elevator, like one in the subway in upper Manhattan, would seemingly hold all the people that are sitting in the seats.
Things started well, and ended well, but in between there was disappointment. Three split exactas, running 1-3, photo finishes for second that didn't go in one's favor can be discouraging. The winning on the last race continued the lifetime tradition of hitting the last race more often than any other race on the card.
So what's so entertaining about that? The eighth race. The feature.
Feature races are the races on the card with the biggest purse. Generally, the best horses competing who meet the criteria for eligibility for the race and who have been trained for the spot. The feature can be graded, I, II, or III, with I being considered the highest. Saturday's feature was a bit low-key: Gallant Bloom Handicap for fillies and mares, three years old and up, to run six and a half furlongs on the main track (dirt, not turf), Grade II affair. $300,000 purse. Not bad.
A six and a half furlong face is considered a sprint, and the Gallant Bloom has attracted six top sprinters, with several career wins each with large accumulated earnings (purse money won).
The one horse, Artemis Agrotera is the favorite, and deservedly so, How horses come to get the names they get is always a bit of a story and a mystery. Most of the time the names are derived from the immediate breeding of the horse: the sire, the sire's sire, the mare and the mare's sire.
This of course is not always the case. There was one owner who named his filly Flat Fleet Feet in the hopes that the name would completely tongue-tie the race calling announcer. (It didn't.)
If wordplay is your thing, you can fun with horses names. Like Marie Antoinette, who ran yesterday, but lost by more than a head. It can go one and on.
Back to Artemis Agrotera. A men's cologne? The horse is sired by Roman Ruler, from an A.P. Indy mare Indy Glory. Fusaichi Pegasus is Roman Ruler's sire. Good sprint breeding.
But where does an name like Artemis Agrotera come from? When there are names like that, they generally come from either Greek or Roman mythology. Bingo. Artemis was a Greek deity, and the Greek poet Homer referred to her as Artemis Agrotera, "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals." The successful owners and breeders, Chester and Mary Broman, no doubt do crossword puzzles in ink.
So, the race. Artemis is seen as the primary speed. Get in front, stay there, and coast to victory. That's what she did in her last race, The Ballerina at Saratoga on August 23rd, Travers Day. Pressed the leader hard, moved to the front, and won by six lengths, defeating seven other horses. As some would say, she's the 'mortal lock.' The odds reflect this. 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, finishing at 2/5. This is called "odds-on" and at 2/5 pays $2.80 to win on a $2 bet. On a stock, a 40% gain would be seen as a great thing. On a race, it is seen as a foolish bet by most because it requires risking a good deal of capital to make an appreciable return. However, this doesn't discourage some. Risk is in every part of their name.
Every race usually contains a mix of horses who did not totally make up the field of any prior race. Races are snowflakes; each one is different.
In this particular race, even though there are only five other horses to challenge Artemis, there is other "speed." The prevailing handicapping wisdom sees doom for Artemis if she doesn't secure the lead. If either Bridgehampton or La Verdad gets the lead, Artemis might struggle home, second, or even be out of the money. A terrible fate for a horse on the board at 3/5 and 2/5. And certainly not good for the money bet on Artemis. But certainly good for others.
Starting gate doors pop open. Artemis, breaking sixth, does not get the lead. La Verdad does, and is making the most of it. Sprinting to first and as they say, "peeling off" fractions that are suicidal for finishing the race first. Pace makes the race, and a perfect pace is needed. La Verdad is a four-legged rocket with a man on its back: the first quarter, two furlongs, is run in 21 3/5 . Fast. Blistering fast. The lead is a half a length. The half mile mark, four furlongs, is passed in an astonishing 43 3/5, and the lead is three lengths. We're seeing an F-16 gallop. The lead into the stretch is four lengths, leaving less than a quarter of a mile to go. Looking good, despite the suicide pace. Basically, empty air is behind La Verdad.
Meanwhile, Artemis is looking bad. Fifth place at the quarter pole, approximately nine lengths back of the leader. At the half, in sixth place, Artemis is just under eight lengths back of the leader. This looks bad for that home team.
Going into stretch, Artemis Agrotera, is fourth, very wide, but things are a bit better: just under six lengths back of the leader, La Verdad. but still behind three horses.
The six furlongs is run in 1:08 3/5, an extremely fast time considering there is still a half of furlong left, 110 yards.
La Verdad did not stop running fast. Victory and glory were going to be hers despite the four-legged
'Mistress of Animals' coming down her right side. All that front-end speed and the margin of the lead were going to work, despite the suicidal pace. It certainly looked that way, until it didn't.
Artemis of course hadn't stopped running, even though at the outset it looked like she was going to throw in a clinker. She just kept running, and running faster.
If you can imagine air disappearing, then you imagine that there was less and less air separating the two horses. Sitting close to the wire it wasn't hard to realize that Artemis Agrotera has just passed La Verdad and was winning the race by a head. Not a great margin of victory, but a win is a win.
Exciting. No exacta was personally hit, despite having La Verdad in some possibilities. Artemis was left out.
The Daily Racing Form chart caller was effusive in their description of what Artemis had done: "...charged home with an amazing display of determination and speed to wrest away the decision in the last jump." No bad words for La Verdad. Just "...got reeled in right at the wire."
In fact, watching a full replay of the race, and seeing the lead La Verdad had deep in the stretch, close to the wire, and how much ground Artemis was trying to make up, well, you think Artemis is not going to win the replay.
Ever.
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