Creator wins Belmont Stakes in photo finish

Creator (13) with jockey Irad Ortiz Jr., finishes ahead of Destin (2) with jockey Javier Castellano to win the 148th running of the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park.

Destin showed a ton of class in the last two furlongs of the Triple Crown’s longest race, but Creator just had that little extra to push his nose forward at the wire.

The 3-year-old gray colt trained by Steve Asmussen came flying down the stretch as Destin tried to hang on to the lead.

The wow moment of a repeat Triple Crown vanished in the Preakness, when Exaggerator defeated Kentucky Derby victor Nyquist.

Creator paid $34.80 for his third win in 10 starts after being timed in 2:28.51 in the 1 1/2-mile race. He endured a awful trip, fighting his rider throughout and racing four wide, closer to the pace than usual, after breaking from gate 11 in the 13-runner field. Preakness. And now, he had come through with a sensational victory in the Belmont Stakes to claim the first Triple Crown in 37 years.

Creator is the ninth horse this century to run in the Derby or on Derby weekend, skip the Preakness, and win the Belmont Stakes.

With the Belmont shaping up as a paceless race, WinStar Farm made the call to transfer their maiden-winner Gettysburg from trainer Todd Pletcher to Asmussen’s barn for the sake of having the colt serve as a rabbit to aid the late-running Creator and Exaggerator, whom they own the stallion rights to. He’s won five of 11, with three second-place finishes and earnings of almost $3 million. Gettysburg continued to lead them and Destin still chased in second as they went four furlongs in 48.48 seconds.

“By the time we got to the eight pole, he was stepping on his tongue”, said jockey Kent Desormeaux, who said neither the track surface nor the traffic could be blamed.

AFTER his Dubai World Cup flop, last year’s Belmont Stakes runner-up Frosted (Kiaran McLaughlin/Joel Rosario) had plenty of questions to answer – and the Godolphin four-year-old answered them in no uncertain terms when he annihilated a good field in the $1.25million event better known as the Met Mile. With Ortiz urging him on, Creator stormed into contention after running near the back of the pack for his sixth win in 12 career starts.

Ortiz said: “It’s a magical feeling and is very important for me”.

The kick in the trousers on this day was that as soon as the Belmont horses crossed the finish line, it started to rain pretty hard. I was glad to see them put that number up.

Irad Ortiz, Jr’s career break in racing dates back to NY in 2011, when he came at age 19 from the Hipodromo Camarero in his native Puerto Rico to Belmont Park, scoring his first American victory with Millennium Jet on June 24.

As expected under Paco Lopez, Gettysburg set the pace early, with Destin chasing in second and the longshot Seeking the Soul in third.

“Irad gave him the ideal trip”.

“We knew we weren’t going to have a Triple Crown every year”, said NYRA President Chris Kay.

The Belmont was captured by WinStar Farm and Bobby Flay’s Creator, nosing out Destin on the wire.

“I was hoping to dispel the sloppy track thing, but that has to come into play as well”, Keith Desormeaux said.