OCEANPORT, N.J. – You thought they ran the Belmont Stakes six weeks ago at Saratoga? Well, they ran it again Saturday at Monmouth Park. In a carbon copy of the Belmont, Mindframe collared Dornoch in upper stretch before Irad Ortiz had asked for Mindframe’s best, taking the lead, looking like he’d win by open lengths. And just like in the Belmont, Dornoch gallantly came back along the rail, passing Mindframe in the final furlong on the way to a 1 1/4-length victory in the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational. “He’s a big horse. He has a big stride, he can run all day,” winning rider Luis Saez said. “And he’s a fighter.” Dornoch also, as of Saturday evening, is the leading 3-year-old in North America. Winner of the Remsen at age 2, Dornoch captured the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth in his 3-year-old debut, finished fourth in the Blue Grass - a failed experiment in rating - was a bad-trip 10th in the Kentucky Derby, and then won the Belmont at odds of 17-1. On Saturday bettors again failed to give proper respect. Dornoch paid $8.80 as the third choice behind 4-5 Mindframe and 3.3-1 Timberlake, who took a narrow lead past the three-furlong marker but faded to finished third, five lengths behind Mindframe and 2 1/2 lengths ahead of fourth-place Just Step On It. Sea Streak, a dull Tuscan Sky, and Jasper’s Pride completed the order of finish. Fierceness was scratched to start next week in the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. Dornoch was given a 103 Beyer Speed Figure. This was the third time Dornoch has battled back to win after being passed in the stretch. It happened in the Remsen, where Dornoch beat another leading member of his generation, Sierra Leone, as well as in the Belmont. Sierra Leone appeared to run the better race in the Remsen, rallying wide over an inside speed-biased track, and many thought Dornoch, coming home along the fence at Saratoga, benefited from occupying the better part of the racing surface. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. “I don’t have to hear about a speed bias this time,” said winning trainer Danny Gargan, who compared Dornoch to Silver Charm, the 1997 Kentucky Derby winner known for his tenacious finishes. “First Timberlake got by us, then Mindframe got by us, and he beat both of them. And the farther they go, the better he’s going to be.” Dornoch will go farther next month in the Travers Stakes, run, like the Belmont this year, over 1 1/4 miles. In the 1 1/8-mile Haskell he was timed in 1:50.31, .15 seconds faster than the 4-year-old Tapit Trice’s clocking two races earlier in his Monmouth Cup romp. The Monmouth track was deep and slow throughout Saturday’s card, and at times appeared to be favoring horses closing on the outside. “I was a little nervous because speed wasn’t doing well on this track,” Gargan said. “For them to go 48, that wasn’t an easy pace.” Dornoch, breaking alertly from post 1, made the lead over Timberlake, running his first quarter-mile into a headwind in a snappy 23.32, getting the half in 48.08. Timberlake, starting for the first time since a disappointing showing in the Arkansas Derby this past April, raced a little more keenly than ideal under Flavien Prat, tugging to the lead as the 3-year-olds wheeled into the first part of the second turn. Outside Timberlake came Mindframe – moving like a winner he would not become. It wasn’t a catastrophic stumble, but Mindframe briefly went to his knees leaving the gate, Ortiz taking him down to the fence to sit fourth into the first turn and down the backstretch. At the half-mile pole, Ortiz vacated the fence, pushing his way past Sea Streak to get outside and into the clear. Any veteran race-watcher can tell when a jockey is sitting on, as the phrase often goes, “a ton of horse,” and Ortiz came to the quarter pole loaded, barely moving his hands as Saez began getting very, very busy on Dornoch. At Saratoga, making just his third start after two galloping wins to begin his career, Mindframe reacted to the second smack of Ortiz’s crop, drifting badly and losing momentum. On Saturday, it happened before Ortiz even went to the crop, Mindframe cornering into the stretch somewhat wide and continuing his outward drift as he straightened up. Maybe the colt was anticipating the crop, because when Ortiz hit him right-handed for the first time, Mindframe drifted left a few paths. Ortiz then only brushed his mount with a left-handed stick and Mindframe swerved back out, and when Ortiz did give him a left-handed thump, Mindframe drifted out a couple paths. And so it went, in and out, out and in, as Dornoch made a beeline for the wire. Ortiz “thought he was traveling really well, and when he got to the top of the stretch, he was in position to put away the race,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “He thought he got a little bit lost when he put his head in front; he got to wandering around a little bit again. He was pretty far away from the eventual winner, and he just said maybe think about some blinkers.” Pletcher felt like he was watching the Belmont. “I was thinking at the sixteenth pole this was not happening again, but it was,” he said. Looking like a winner in upper stretch doesn’t get you paid: Running hard and determinedly all the way to the wire, like Dornoch, does the trick. Dornoch won for the fifth time in nine starts, the $600,000 winner’s share of the purse raising his earnings to more than $2.3 million. A son of Good Magic and Puca, by Big Brown, Dornoch is a full brother to Mage, who won the 2023 Derby and finished second in last year’s Haskell. Gargan trains the colt for West Paces Racing, R.A. Hill Stable, Belmar Racing and Breeding, Two Eight Racing, and Pine Racing Stables. His owners announced after the race that Spendthrift Farm after the Belmont had acquired Dornoch’s breeding rights. Gargan said Dornoch will ship back to Saratoga on Sunday morning, getting a brief respite before his Travers preparation begins in earnest. Gargan thought very highly of Dornoch as a 2-year-old, so much so that after a debut defeat in a six-furlong Saratoga maiden, he sent Dornoch to Monmouth, looking for more distance, to start in the one-mile Sapling Stakes. After a wide trip, Dornoch, the 3-2 favorite, took the lead and held it to deep stretch, whereupon the Pletcher-trained Noted ran him down. Noted is nowhere near the horse Dornoch has become. And this summer, nobody can get past Dornoch in the homestretch. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.