Although Rachel Alexandra struggled with the track surface and the heat in winning the Preakness he will have no problem running in the forthcoming Belmont Stakes, the filly\'s jockey said on Friday.
Calvin Borel said Rachel Alexandra could handle the mile-and-a-half Belmont (2.4 kms), the longest of the Triple Crown races, should her connections decide to run her on June 6.
\"She\'d be just fine,\" Borel told Reuters in a telephone interview from his base at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
\"The reason she struggled in the Preakness was because the track was very dry. It was supposed to rain and I don\'t think the guys wet it enough. It was very powdery, like dry sand.
\"She put so much power into her strides, it was just breaking out from under her. She won but you didn\'t see the real Rachel Alexandra. She won on heart.\"
Borel won the Kentucky Derby aboard Mine That Bird before guiding Rachel Alexandra to a one-length victory in the Preakness last Saturday at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
He said he was concerned about the heat following the filly\'s near wire-to-wire victory in the Preakness, a race in which she won from the far outside in the field of 13.
\"She was catching a heat stroke and I was very concerned about her,\" he said. \"I wanted to get her back and get some water on her.
\"My biggest concern was the horse because I know she\'s the greatest thing in the world and she was getting overheated.
\"She struggled so much in the race and when I pulled her up she started acting a little funny. I know that because I know her like the back of my hand.
\"She never did that before. Once we got water on her, she was fine.\"
The jockey is now waiting to see if Rachel Alexandra\'s owners decide to run her in the $1 million Belmont and give her the chance to become the first filly to win two Triple Crown races.
Borel is under contract to ride the filly but if her owners back out, the 42-year-old jockey would probably return to Preakness runner-up Mine That Bird for the Belmont.
