Senior Investment Goes Easy in Belmont Breeze

Trainer Kenny McPeek has lived and he has learned.

He first brought a horse to the Belmont Stakes (G1) in 1999. Pineaff had just run third in the Illinois Derby (G2), 1 1/4 lengths behind winner Vision and Verse, who also made the trip to Belmont Park for the third leg of the Triple Crown.

McPeek shipped in the son of Pine Bluff three days before the race, got in a gallop or two over the Belmont main track, and then ran ninth, 21 1/4 lengths behind winner Lemon Drop Kid  , who edged Vision and Verse by a head.

"There was no question he was going to get the distance," McPeek said of Pineaff from the Belmont grandstand June 6, moments before he watched his current Belmont hopeful, Fern Circle Stables' Senior Investment, log an easy half-mile breeze in :50 1/5 on his watch. "I decided to bring him up three days before the Belmont. We did that, and he gets here and trained great. But he got over the racetrack and he was literally like a fish out of water. He floundered around and got beat by (what felt like) 50-plus lengths.

"Vision and Verse, who had been training here, runs second to Lemon Drop Kid. I swore I'd never come back to Belmont without a work over the track."

Three years later McPeek brought Sarava to Elmont, N.Y., changed his training plan, and the Wild Again colt won the 1 1/2-mile classic by a half-length over Medaglia d'Oro   at odds of 70-1.

Fast forward 14 years and McPeek is following exactly the same program with Senior Investment.

"Half the time, horses in the middle of (the Triple Crown)—they wilt," McPeek said. "Sarava was a horse who was moving forward. And we're on the same work routine. It's the exact same as him going into this race."

McPeek said Senior Investment's breeze Tuesday under jockey Dylan Davis had a primary goal—to get the Discreetly Mine colt acclimated to Belmont's unique main-track surface.

"The horses that are stabled here have a distinct advantage—not only the circumference of it, but the surface," McPeek said. "You know the old nickname 'Big Sandy'? That's the grueling part of it. It's not just the mile and a half. It's the surface. A horse that doesn't get along with it can flounder around it.

"Galloping on it is OK, but you want them to stretch their legs, so those muscles get used to the sand."

With that in mind, Davis got Senior Investment going slow, then finished up the last quarter-mile in :24 4/5.

"He did it better than last week," Davis said, in reference to the Stonestreet Lexington Stakes (G3) winner's :49.13 half-mile work May 31. "He did it easy that first quarter and then I let him open up and stretch out his legs in the lane. He got a feel for the track and handled it a lot better today.

BLOODHORSE STAFF: Senior Investment Breezes for Belmont Stakes

"I let him walk a little longer, stand a little longer, (and) get comfortable. He's going a mile and a half, so the horse has got to be comfortable going around there. ... If they're not comfortable, they'll be stressed out early and they won't be able to finish. He was very comfortable, and he's got a great stride on him. I asked him, and he picked it up and finished great. I think he's going to go well into the race."

With his final breeze complete, McPeek is confident following Senior Investment's third-place run in the Preakness Stakes (G1), as long as he keeps cleaning up his feed.

"The key is they've got to be drilling the feed tub," the trainer said. "This big bear, he's eating like—you drop it in and it's gone in five minutes, which is a horse trainer's dream. As long as he can get through this and continue on that kind of pattern, I'm going to be pretty confident."