Saturday Belmont Card Includes Grade 2 Turf Stakes

While the focus of the racing world on May 7 will be on Churchill Downs in Kentucky, New York racing fans will be served an appetizer of three graded stakes at Belmont Park, two of them on the turf.

With a wealth of stakes action in Kentucky, the $200,000 Fort Marcy Stakes (G2T) and the $200,000 Sheepshead Bay Stakes (G2T) for fillies and mares attracted relatively small fields of eight and five, respectively, with trainer Chad Brown having a strong hand in both of them.

The Fort Marcy, at 1 1/8 miles on the inner turf course for 4-year-olds and up, features a Brown trio, topped by the grade 1-winning Rockemperor  who will be joined by stablemates Sacred Life  and L'Imperator .

Rockemperor, a 6-year-old son of Holy Roman Emperor  owned by Madaket Stables, Michael Dubb, Wonder Stables, Michael Kisber, and Michael Caruso, posted a breakthrough win last fall in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes (G1T) at Belmont that earned him a trip west to Del Mar for the Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T).

After finishing eighth Nov. 6 at the World Championships, he returned later that month in the Hollywood Turf Cup (G2T) and finished fifth by 1 1/2 lengths.

Like last year, when he finished third in the Fort Marcy, Saturday's race will serve as his initial start of the year.

Sacred Life, owned by Dubb, Madaket, Wonder Stables, and Caruso, has already started twice this year. The grade 1-placed Siyouni  ridgling was fourth in the Muniz Memorial Classic Stakes Presented by Horse Racing Nation (G2T) and sixth in the Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes Presented by Baccarat (G1T).

L'Imperator, by Holy Roman Emperor and owned by Madaket, Wonder Stables, and Robert LaPenta, is coming off a disappointing 10th in the Tampa Bay Stakes (G3T).

The main rivals figure to be Allen's Stable's Doswell , who won the Ft. Lauderdale Stakes (G2T) and then was seventh in the Pegasus Turf, and Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and Peter and Patty Searles' City Man , a New York-bred son of Mucho Macho Man   coming off a win in the Danger's Hour Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack for trainer Christophe Clement.

"I think the nine furlongs is fine. It's not out of reach for him," trainer Barclay Tagg said about Doswell, a son of Giant's Causeway . "It's been a little time since we ran him, so we'll see what happens."

Virginia Joy tops Sheepshead Bay

Brown has only one starter in the Sheepshead Bay, but that may be more than enough.

The standout in the field is Peter Brant's Virginia Joy , who was last seen taking The Very One Stakes (G3T) for Brown at Gulfstream Park by a length at the same 1 3/8-mile distance as Saturday's race.

A 4-5 favorite in The Very One, the 5-year-old Soldier Hollow  mare posted her first stakes win in that Florida race since moving to the United States and Brown's barn last year. Group 1-placed in Germany, she has captured two of her four American starts.

Because of the five-horse field, the Sheepshead Bay will be contested as the third of 11 races on Saturday's card which starts at 12:20 p.m.