Antiquarian powers to Westchester win, gives Velazquez-Pletcher 500th stakes victory

Antiquarian did more than sharpen his case as one of the East’s top older dirt horses. He turned the Westchester Stakes into a landmark afternoon for John Velazquez and Todd Pletcher, who reached 500 stakes victories together when the 5-year-old drew clear by 5 3/4 lengths at Belmont at the Big A.

The Grade 3, $175,000 mile on May 3 was supposed to test whether Antiquarian still belonged among the division’s best after an eight-month layoff. Instead, the chestnut colt by Preservationist out of Lifetime Memory by Istan answered in force, finishing in 1:35.42 while carrying 124 pounds. Bishops Bay, a multiple graded stakes winner and past Westchester winner, held second and Pentathlon was third, but neither could stay with Antiquarian once Velazquez asked for run.

The win mattered because it came in Antiquarian’s first start since an eighth-place finish in the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar, and it reset the conversation around him. He had already shown his class when he won the 2024 Jockey Club Gold Cup on Aug. 31, and this performance suggested the layoff did not dull him at all. He returned $6.34 to win, and the way he finished left little doubt that this was not a soft seasonal opener. It looked like a statement from a horse still capable of shaping the older-horse picture in New York.

For Velazquez and Pletcher, the race added another round-number milestone to a partnership that has been piling them up for years. Velazquez summed up the magnitude simply: “It’s unbelievable. That’s hard to do.” BloodHorse noted that no other American jockey-trainer combination is anywhere close to 500 stakes wins, which is why the number feels less like a benchmark than a ceiling. It is the kind of figure that may stand for a long time.

The practical question now is where Antiquarian goes next, and Don Little Jr. has already pointed to the Suburban Stakes and the Metropolitan Handicap as possible targets. That puts Antiquarian right back where his pedigree, record and latest effort suggest he should be, in the major summer-mile conversation. Centennial Farms bought him for $25,000 at the Keeneland October 2022 sale, and after a Grade 1 win, a Breeders’ Cup Classic start and this kind of return, he has become more than a useful stakes horse. He looks like a real player for the next big New York prize.