Enter him, and Weigelia does the rest. In four seasons of racing, Weigelia has won 13 of 39 starts and about $25,000 shy of $1 million. He’ll beat you on the dirt, on the turf and anywhere from five to seven furlongs. In fact, Weigelia holds the record for the fastest six furlongs ever run over Belmont Park’s Inner Turf Course, a scorching 1:07.

Sunday is also Family Fun Day at Belmont Park, offering pony rides, face painting, inflatable rides and, this Sunday the Nickelodeon Game Lab from the popular children’s television show.

The World of Horses also celebrates its 10th anniversary on Sunday. World of Horses is part of the Belmont Stakes Festival, celebrating the 139th running of the Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 9. The Parade of Breeds starts the celebration which features equine exhibitions on track between races.

Weigelia, who has excelled at various tracks up and down the Eastern seaboard, despite a with a pedigree worth about 10 grand, has drawn post 8 in the Jaipur with jockey Eddie Castro. And a victory would propel him well over the $1 million mark in career earnings.

“He’s doing really well and from his recent training he should run well,” said Trombetta, who currently has strings in Maryland and Delaware. “He came out of his last race at Calder in good shape. The one thing with him: he loves the Calder main track and the Inner Turf at Belmont.”

Weigelia set the track record here in a $56,000 allowance race last June. Since then, the grandson of Danzig has raced 10 times – all stakes – at six tracks. This season, he owns a win, a second and a third from four starts. On the final Saturday of April, he scored a near-career-best victory in Calder’s Ponche.

“Like I said, he came out of the Calder race fine,” Trombetta said. “He’s been stabled at Delaware, so he doesn’t have that far a ride to New York. As far as the race, he doesn’t care how it sets up; he can sit off horses if he has to. As long as he gets a clean start, he’ll be there.”

Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin won the Jaipur a decade ago with Atraf and has not one, but two horses for Sunday’s renewal in Carnera and Museeb. Carnera, a four-year-old by Old Trieste, appears the stronger of the two. Purchased for $550,000 as a yearling, Carnera has gone on to win four of 14 starts, including the A in Sociology at Saratoga Race Course last summer. As a three-year-old, Carnera finished third in the Hill Prince and second in the Lexington, a pair of Grade 3 stakes run over the Belmont Park turf.

Carnera, however, will race with two bar shoes in the Jaipur.

Museeb, a five-year-old son of the late Danzig, is winless in four turf races since he took a Belmont Park allowance sprint last June. Museeb, whose last two races have come over Keeneland’s Polytrack, has drawn post 4 with jockey Fernando Jara.

Trainer H. Morgan “Howie” Tesher has entered Baron Von Tap in the Jaipur with the hopes the horse can get up going six furlongs. Baron Von Tap, a four-time winner on the turf who was better than ever this winter at Gulfstream Park, has never raced at the Jaipur distance.

“He wound up on the lead in the Fort Marcy (Baron Von Tap finished sixth as the 5-2 second choice) and it didn’t work,” Tesher said. “I want him to come from off the pace and turning back against some of these good sprinters, he’s going to get outrun early. I think he can close pretty good.”

Baron Von Tap, who does own a victory on the Belmont Park grass, is picking up jockey Garrett Gomez.

“He’s a great rider,” Tesher said.

Red Storm Stable’s Congo King owns the best recent turf sprint form of anyone in the Jaipur after running second in Keeneland’s Grade 2 Shakertown and third in Churchill’s Turf Sprint. Congo King, a four-year-old son of Horse Chestnut, has drawn post 6 with jockey John Velazquez. The colt is conditioned by trainer Patrick Biancone.

Hall of Fame trainer H. Allen Jerkens entered the winner of the 2005 Jaipur, Ecclesiastic. Jerkens himself has won the Jaipur three times.

Ecclesiastic, now six, will try to rebound here after winning just once in his last 10 starts. He exits out of a seventh-place finish in Aqueduct’s April 29th Fort Marcy, a race he went off at 12-1.
source www.nyra.com