Kentucky set stage for Creator’s Belmont win in New York

Creator (green cap) wins the Belmont Stakes * Photo by NYRA/Coglianese Photography

Creator (green cap) wins the Belmont Stakes * Photo by NYRA/Coglianese Photography

From Kentucky HBPA news release
Posted: 6/12/2016

As Steve Asmussen awaits induction into horse racing’s Hall of Fame in August,  Creator’s victory in Saturday’s 148th Belmont Stakes is the perfect illustration of the team behind the record-setting trainer.

Creator, owned by WinStar Farm with celebrity chef Bobby Flay buying part-interest before the Belmont, seized the limelight in New York. But the behind-the-scenes work in Kentucky set him and jockey Irad Ortiz up for their late-running nose victory over a gritty Destin.

“It was truly a team effort,” Asmussen, winning his first Belmont and third Triple Crown race, said Sunday morning from New York. “I’m just the lucky recipient.

Creator is the first Kentucky-based Belmont winner since the Kenny McPeek-trained Sarava won at a record 70-1 odds in 2002. Six of the 13 Belmont horses this year came from Churchill Downs, all trained by members of the Kentucky division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association.

“We’re proud of all the Kentucky guys running in the Belmont, and we’re glad they’re members of the Kentucky HBPA,” said trainer Rick Hiles, president of the organization that represents more than 6,000 horse owners and trainers. “We’re really proud of Steve, and what a fitting tribute to win the Belmont right before he’s inducted into the Hall of Fame. I’m glad the horses train here, they went up there and did well – and we’ll be glad to have them all back.”

WinStar bought Creator for $440,000 at Keeneland’s 2014 September yearling sale and had the colt at the Versailles, Ky., farm until sending him to Asmussen the following June.  It was the first horse that WinStar sent to Asmussen, in large part because the trainer has so much success developing sons and daughters of the Gainesway Farm stallion Tapit, whose offspring are wonderfully talented but can be a handful and challenging.

“The thing about Creator as a 2-year-old is he was just a big Baby Huey,” said WinStar president Elliott Walden, who as a trainer won the 1998 Belmont by a nose with Victory Gallop. “He wasn’t a real bad actor with a bad mind. He was very immature. He’d see things other horses didn’t see. He’d be just very reactionary. Being at Churchill, where things are a little quieter after the meet, Steve felt that was the way to go.

“His development in Kentucky as a 2-year-old was very important to where he landed (Saturday). Steve has a lot of dedicated people. They all played a part of it, Steve’s whole team.”

At various stages, Creator’s training was overseen by Asmussen assistants Galen Pruitt (last summer at Keeneland and Churchill), Scott Blasi (Churchill last fall and this spring and the Fair Grounds much of the winter), Darren Fleming (Oaklawn, where Creator won maiden race, finished third in the Rebel and captured the Arkansas Derby) and Toby Sheets (nine days in New York).

“He was a bit of a project at the farm. He took some patience here,” Blasi said at Churchill. “He had his days where he was tough to train and had a little bit of a mind of his own. One of the interesting thing about Creator is that he had the seasoning, he had the trips behind horses, the bad trips where he couldn’t get out because he was a closer. At the end of the day, I think that all paid off.”

It was WinStar’s second Belmont victory, following the Bill Mott-trained Drosselmeyer in 2010, with Creator part of a parade of Grade I winners to get their earliest preparation under the care of WinStar farm trainer Richard Budge.

“We had to work really hard with him on the farm,” Walden said. “In some ways, horses respond to the farm’s calm. But with active horses, who are always into things, it’s a little too slow for them sometimes, so they look for trouble. Creator was getting into some habits that we didn’t want to be long-term. Like some people, those horses are better off being busy. And the race-track was definitely a busier environment that helped him focus more.”

Creator took six starts to win a race, though that included four seconds, including at Churchill Downs’ September and fall meets.

“He was kind of a hard horse to figure out because he didn’t have a lot of speed,” Blasi said. “Horses like that can be a little deceptive, just because they need distance. A mile and a sixteenth is too short for him. The horse hasn’t been easy. We all had him. Darren did a great job with. It was a whole team effort.”

Also on Belmont’s showcase card, the richest in North America outside the Breeders’ Cup, Kentucky HBPA member Dallas Stewart won the $500,000 Woody Stephens with Mo Tom and finished second in the $1 million Ogden Phipps with Forever Unbridled. The Phipps was won by Cavorting, trained by Kiaran McLaughlin, a Kentucky HBPA member based in New York.

In marked a huge weekend for HBPA members, with Kentucky board member Dale Romans winning three races at Churchill Downs Friday and board member Buff Bradley three at Churchill on Saturday, including an allowance race with 46-1 Divine Warrior, who was co-bred by Fred Bradley, Buff’s dad who died last month.

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