Bryan Smith/for New York Daily News

Jockey Mario Gutierrez hops on I'll Have Another as colt is officially retired in Belmont winner's circle before even getting chance to make run at history.

The horses from the eighth race were walked slowly away from the track at Belmont Park, past Barn 9, a sign saying “Mark Hennig Racing Stable” outside that barn, a great horse named I’ll Have Another inside. This was two hours, maybe a little more than that, from when the Belmont Stakes would start, on the other side of the grounds from the famous track, on the wrong side of what was supposed to be such a great day for the horse and for his sport.
In a little while, they would walk the injured colt over to the paddock and then from there into the winner’s circle, and then I’ll Have Another’s trainer, Doug O’Neill, would walk his horse away from the track and back toward the barn area at Belmont and into retirement.
That was for later. For now there were just the muted racetrack sounds in the distance, some music playing from one of the tents, and I’ll Have Another in the quiet and shade of Barn 9.
“The story sure changed, didn’t it?” a security man in a blue blazer outside the barn said. “Everything changed, just like that.”
Somebody asked one of the grooms what race had just ended and the young man smiled and shouted over in Spanish to another groom walking a horse away from the track.
“Ocho,” the first groom said.
A woman named Tina, working security for the NYRA, out in front of Barn 9, closer to the clubhouse at Belmont, Tina with “Peace Officer” written on her uniform, said, “That’s how fast today’s news becomes yesterday’s news in this sport.”
Another security man, in a short-sleeved shirt, earpiece in his ear, said, “They’re gonna walk him over to the paddock, don’t know when. All I know is that it’s not the walk this horse was supposed to take.”
They were talking about I’ll Have Another walking now, walking one lap after another in the paddock when he got over there, on the day when he was supposed to run on as famous a course as there is in racing, the mile-and-a-half at Belmont, maybe come from behind again, maybe run his way all the way into the history of his sport by winning the first Triple Crown since Affirmed and Alydar.
Maybe he would show you the kind of finishing speed he showed you in the Derby and then in the Preakness, finish like that at Belmont, come to the finish and into the big New York sound of this race, especially when there is a big horse trying to win the Triple Crown. Maybe I’ll Have Another would have given the race the kind of amazing finish that Union Rags did early Saturday evening, John Velazquez squeezing his horse past Paynter on the rail through a hole no bigger than Velazquez.