There will be no repeat of the 2015 Godolphin Mile clash between Sloane Avenue and Tamarkuz at Belmont Park on Saturday night after Jeremy Noseda’s English raider was ruled out of the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap.
Tamarkuz held off the late surge of Sloane Avenue in an epic at Meydan to prevail by a short head, after which Newmarket trainer Jeremy Noseda won no diplomatic awards with a moan about the draw.
Sloane Avenue has sustained a quarter crack to his left front foot and will miss the mile dirt contest that also features Godolphin’s Frosted, who was last season finishing fifth in the Dubai World Cup in March, and Marking, who was fourth to One Man Band in the Godolphin Mile.
All three horses are trained by Kiaran McLaughlin, who has high hopes for the Godolphin pair.
“People keep asking how horses are going to perform back in the States after racing in Dubai, and I keep telling them that making that trip has no detrimental effect whatsoever,” McLaughlin told the Godolphin website.
“We ran Lady Shipman, who finished seventh in the Al Quoz Sprint, and she’s come back and won two races since her return. Invasor, in his year (the 2007 World Cup winner) was another. There are no ill-effects that I can see.
“Frosted is fit and well and the Met Mile is more like a mile and sixteenth. They will go very quick. The leaders will be getting tired and I’m hoping Frosted will be running on.”
Twelve months ago, Frosted ran second to American Pharoah on this card in the Belmont Stakes, which is the feature race on a stellar day’s racing that boasts 10 stakes races and $US8 million (Dh29.4m) in prize-money.
The Triple Crown dream may be extinguished for another year, but Exaggerator bids to show that his eclipse of Nyquist in the Preakness Stakes three weeks ago was no fluke.
Exaggerator, who will be ridden once again by Kent Desormeaux, drew stall 11 of 13 in Wednesday’s post position draw, one outside of UAE Derby winner Lani, the Japanese raider who was ninth behind Nyquist in the Kentucky Derby and fifth at Pimilco. They are the only two horses in the 13-runner field to have run in all three legs of the Triple Crown this season.
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