Dornoch won the 156th running of the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, beating a handful of contenders widely believed to have a greater chance of winning.
“It was perfect,” jockey Luis Saez said of Dornoch’s run to fend off Mindframe, who finished second. Sierra Leone finished third.
Trainer Danny Gargan got his first victory in a Triple Crown race with the 3-year-old colt, the brother of 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage.
Dornoch found his stride early, dispatching one of the favored entries, Preakness winner Seize the Grey, who seemed to stall in his dust.
“We controlled the pace,” Saez said after the race.
Purchased as a yearling in 2022, Dornoch seemed to mature on race day, holding off Mindframe and favorite Sierra Leone in the final sprint.
“Today we got pretty good confidence that we could win this race,” Saez said.
Gargan said of Dornoch, “We let him run his race, and he won.”
Co-owner Randy Hill said nobody believed in Dornoch, but that allowed Saez to put his head into the race and do his best.
“I told Luis, you run your race — nobody will beat you and no one’s going to run you down,” Hill said after the race.
Jayson Werth, a retired MLB All-Star and co-owner, celebrated the win.
“This is as good as it gets in horse racing, it’s as good as it gets in sports,” he said.
With two different winners for the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, there is no Triple Crown champion this year. Only 13 horses in horse racing history have claimed all three races, most recently Justify in 2018.
There was still plenty of intrigue heading into the race.
Sierra Leone, trained by Chad Brown and jockeyed by Flavien Prat, entered the race as the 9-5 favorite. The 3-year-old previously won the Blue Grass Stakes and Risen Star Stakes, and finished second in the Kentucky Derby.
But it was Dornoch, with 17-1 odds, that came out ahead.
This third leg of the Triple Crown is normally held at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, but took place Saturday at Saratoga Race Course for the first time due to renovations.
Belmont Park is undergoing a $455 million renovation to improve track surfaces, build a smaller grandstand, and increase open space for fans.
Saturday’s venue in Saratoga Springs is different in more than just name. Belmont Park is run at the marathon 1 ½-mile distance around the largest racing oval in America. Saratoga Race Course, by comparison, is a shorter distance at 1 ¼ miles, the same as the Kentucky Derby.