June 11 (UPI) — Mo Donegal beat out fellow favorites We The People and Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike during the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, the final leg of the Triple Crown.
We The People, with 2-1 odds, led the race early and through the halfway mark but Mo Donegal, with 5-2 odds, took the lead in the final stretch of the race and won with a time of 2:28.28.
Nest, a filly, took second place and Skippylongstocking took third as We The People fell to fourth place.
The team behind Mo Donegal, who was piloted by three-time Eclipse Award-winning jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr., took home a $800,000 prize as the field of eight competed for a total prize purse of $1.5 million.
Early Voting, who won the Preakness Stakes in May, did not race on the 1 1/2-mile dirt track, nicknamed “Big Sandy,” in Elmont, N.Y., on Saturday.
Rich Strike, with 7-2 odds headed into the Belmont Stakes, skipped the Preakness and took sixth place at Belmont.
The race Saturday ended the competition for the Triple Crown, marking the fourth consecutive year without a winner as three different horses won each of the three races.
“MO WON THE BELMONT!” Donegal Racing tweeted after his victory.
Marty Irby, executive director of the Animal Wellness Action group, issued a statement after the race congratulating trainer Todd Pletcher “and the entire Mo Donegal team” on the win.
“We appreciate [New York Racing Association’s] continued work to bring integrity back to the sport,” he said.
“[We] look forward to the implementation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act in just a few short weeks, and hope to see clean drug tests reported back from all the horses that were tested in the 154th Belmont Stakes.”
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