The $600,000, Grade 1 Man o’ War Stakes Saturday at Belmont Park pits eight horses running the marathon distance of 1 3/8 miles against each other, some with significant credentials in similar races.
Leading the field in terms of earnings is Channel Maker at over $3.7 million. He won this race in 2019 but he’s a 9-year-old now and has just won two of eight races in the past 16 months. Red Knight is proven at the level. He has banked nearly $1.4 million, most of it earned winning the Grade 2 Kentucky Turf Cup Stakes last fall. Verstappen proved he belongs at the level and distance with a win by a head over Red Knight in the Grade 3 Elkhorn Stakes last month. Value Engineering Value Engineering finished last of eight in the Elkhorn, but won the Grade 2 Mac Diarmida Stakes at this distance prior to that so is another who fits with these. Then there’s Warren Point, who ships across the pond from England after competing in Bahrain and in Qatar, where in the latter country he just missed by a half-length in the H.H. The Amir Trophy Stakes. Strong Tide has yet to win a graded stakes but finished third over the course 11 months ago in the Grade 2 Belmont Gold Cup Stakes, while Soldier Rising was second in the Grade 1 Saratoga Derby Invitational in the summer of 2021, but has only won a pair of allowance races since then. Howe Street rounds out the field off a sixth-place finish behind Verstappen and Red Knight in the Elkhorn Stakes last month.
Top Contenders:
When trainer Charles Appleby ships a horse to the U.S. we must take note, and such is the case with Warren Point, who has a very strong career record of 5-2-1 in eight starts. A Race Lens query reveals that over the past five years, Appleby’s horses have made 34 starts in North American in Grade 1 races on turf, winning 16 (47%) while placing in another eight. Similarly, when Appleby starts a horse in the North American Grade 1 race after a previous race overseas, nine of 20 of those have won and six more have finished second. In both cases betting $2 on every one of those horses yields anywhere from a 55% to a 71% profit. Warren Point can add to those numbers by repeating his most recent effort when second and just a half-length behind the winner in The Amir Trophy Stakes in Qatar in February among a field of 12. He earned a career-best 113 Equibase Speed Figure for that effort which is on par with the 112 and 113 figures earned by other horses in the Man o’ War field in races similar to this one. As a 4-year-old that’s making his third start of 2023, Warren Point has improving to do, and he gets the services of world-class jockey Frankie Dettori to boot.
Red Knight changed trainers to Mike Maker prior to last July and immediately won the Colonial Cup Stakes at a mile and a half, beating 11 other horses. One race later he posted a 12.02-1 upset against a stellar field in the Kentucky Turf Cup, earning a then career-best 112 figure. After a poor 11th-place showing in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf, Red Knight was given 2 ½ months off and rebounded with another marathon win in the Grade 3 William L. McKnight Stakes Presented by Davidoff Cigars, earning a new career-best 113 figure, before narrowly losing in the Elkhorn Stakes last month, where he battled head-and-head for the lead for the entire last eighth of a mile only to come up short to Verstappen. North American leading jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. rode Red Knight for the first and only time in the McKnight and returns to the saddle in the Man O’ War after not riding him in the Elkhorn, and that could make the difference in turning the tables on Verstappen and beating Warren Point for the win in this race
Verstappen won just one race among the first eight in his career prior to December of last year, when jockey Declan Cannon got aboard for the first time. Since then he’s won three of four races and finished second in the other. He earned a 101 figure for his first win in December, bettering that to 105 in February and then to 109 when second in the Kentucky Cup Classic Stakes in March. Next, in the Elkhorn Stakes, Verstappen continued his pattern of improvement by earning a new career-best 112 figure. In that race, Verstappen put in an eye-catching rally on the far turn moving from seventh to the lead while in the four- to six-path then battled down to the wire to defeat Red Knight by a head. As a 4-year-old with room to improve, Verstappen has every right to run another big race and be competitive down to the wire in this year’s Man O’ War Stakes.
The rest of the field, with their best representative Equibase Speed Figures, is Channel Maker (118), Howe Street (106), Soldier Rising (113), Strong Tide (113) and Value Engineering (112).
Win Contenders:
Warren Point
Red Knight
Verstappen
Pick 4
2-7-3-1
2-7-3-1
$896
Pick 5
1/5-2-7-3-1
1/5-2-7-3-1
$2,143
Superfecta
1-6-7-5
1-6-7-5
$358
Trifecta
1-6-7
1-6-7
$248
Pick 4
2-7-3-1
2-7-3-1
$896
Pick 5
1/5-2-7-3-1
1/5-2-7-3-1
$2,143
Superfecta
1-6-7-5
1-6-7-5
$358
Trifecta
1-6-7
1-6-7
$248
