Tony Dutrow, winning trainer of The Big Beast (No. 7): "[Javier Castellano] came to the paddock and said, 'This horse will be OK today. There are two or three inside of me who are going to go, and I'm going to sit and make a run. I want to get the jump on [Coup de Grace].' And that's just what happened."

"He's the biggest horse I've ever trained, and everybody loves him."

"I learned from my days with Bobby Frankel, when your horse is really, really good not to waste a race. You need to make these races count when your horse is really good. Our horse was really good today, and we saw no reason not to take a crack at the very best."

Javier Castellano, winning jockey aboard The Big Beast (No. 7): "[Taking back] was part of the strategy, to come from behind. This is the first time he went seven-eighths, and we wanted to monitor it. He's a big horse. I thought he could go the distance, and I'm happy with the way he did it. The way I handicapped the race, there was a lot of speed inside me with Wildcat Red and Fast Anna. I didn't want to hook them in a speed duel. I could have gone to the lead, but he rated so beautifully."

Kathy Ritvo, trainer of runner-up Fast Anna (No. 6): "He ran a great race, he tried so hard. I'm proud of him, I'm happy with the way he ran."

Rosie Napravnik, jockey aboard beaten favorite and third-place finisher Coup de Grace (No. 8): "It looked there was going to be a lot of speed in the race and they had a pretty good pace. We kind of just had to maneuver all the way through traffic the whole race. He was really sharp and he ran great, but we didn't have a lot of room to maneuver in the stretch."