Herrmann: The Belmont Stakes is always a winner

From a distance, it might look like an also-ran. From a distance, a Belmont Stakes without a Triple Crown on the line might seem like expecting Lennon and McCartney and getting Ringo; like watching the Marx Brothers and getting Zeppo. But forget that. The distance that really matters is the mile-and-a-half around the track at Belmont Park, and that is a heck of a ride, no matter who's in and who's not.

That very thought occurred yesterday morning to Doug Cauthen, CEO of WinStar Farm, which owns Drosselmeyer, who won the 142nd Belmont Stakes yesterday afternoon. He was reflecting with WinStar's racing manager Elliott Walden about his days as a teenage racing buff.

"One of my first jobs on the track was up here. I was rubbing horses for Laz Barrera," Cauthen said. "I thought I had gone to heaven when I showed up at Belmont Park." Cauthen went on to say how he and his famous brother Steve, the jockey, lived in New York one summer. "He was riding, I was working. We were living the dream," he said.

The Cauthens lived horse racing's ultimate dream 32 years ago when Steve rode Affirmed to victory at the Belmont, completing the three-race classic sweep, a feat that no one has done since. "I remember walking around after Steve won the Triple Crown, with Mom and Dad and my little brother Kerry," Doug Cauthen said. "It was a special moment.

"Today was pretty special too."

That was the whole point, a point not lost on the 45,243 people who were there, howling as Drosselmeyer held off Fly Down. True, it's not the same as when a horse has a shot at going three-for-three. Affirmed raced in front of 120,000 in 1978. But it's still New York and it's still darned good.

To quote Alicia Keys, whose lyrics to Jay-Z's song "Empire State of Mind" have replaced "New York, New York" as Belmont's anthem (sung yesterday by teen pop star Jasmine Villegas): "These streets will make you feel brand new."

That holds even if you're Walden and you've sent Super Saver to the Derby win and kept Super Saver home this time. "I was concerned, probably like everybody else, three weeks ago when Super Saver got beat that it might have taken a little bit of the luster off the Belmont," Walden said. "But I was extremely excited to look up at the grandstand and see wall-to-wall people."

Sure, it was "a little more relaxed" than the 1998 Belmont, when Real Quiet was going for the Triple Crown and lost by a nose to Victory Gallop, the horse Walden trained. Still . . . "I thought it was a good crowd today, an energetic crowd," Walden said. "It was a lot of fun, without having quite as much pressure as there is when a Triple Crown is on the line."

This race wasn't even fast. In fact it was the slowest in 15 years. But it was fun. It was cool to see thousands of fans in their 20s, who will keep coming back for decades. It was cool to look back on the history: It was only the second time that an owner won two Triple Crown races in one year with two different trainers. The previous was 1896, when August Belmont himself was the owner.

The Belmont is big enough to stand on its own, no matter what's happened in the first two legs. Bill Mott, Drosselmeyer's trainer, was a winner at Churchill Downs and other places 25 years ago but he just had an itch to come to New York. He still has the itch to win here. "New York is New York. There are a lot of great places to race," he said, "but I think this has always been the main proving ground."

It can put on a good show, no matter which horses show up. "Other than the finish, the [Belmont] was tremendous," said Lawrence Roman, the Hofstra graduate who owns Spangled Star, who ran last in a race that was no also-ran.