Galileo, at Belmont Park on Friday.
The long-awaited appearance of the Coolmore horses finally took place just before 9:30 Friday morning, and there were a few interesting moments. Galileo schooled fine in the gate, but did get wet under his saddlecloth, despite the cold temperatures and brisk winds. Coolmore's other Classic hopeful Black Minnaloushe was stubborn getting in the gate, and it took quite a while to load him. Prior to the gate schooling, D. Wayne Lukas, who was leading Johannesburg, as he had done last year with Giant's Causeway, wound up being tossed by his pony, when Johannesburg acted up."My pony is a gray, and Aidan was concerned, because Johannesburg and Galileo had never been around grays," Lukas said. "He said Galileo had caused a fuss with a gray horse once before. He wanted me to take him, but right away I could see that horse was going to get stirred up, so we aborted that, and he handed me Johannesburg. Unfortunately, we got the same result, except my pony blew up for whatever reason. Usually, I don't have that problem. I'm way too old, and not enough cowboy to ride them when they're like that. I got so far out of the saddle trying to hold on to him, he thought he had me out of the saddle and tried to finish me. Anyway, I'm sure they got it done without me." O'Brien said Galileo will race on Lasix for the first time, "because all the horses out here run on it."
