Ten horses will line up in the Saratoga Race Course starting gate on Saturday, and the Belmont has drawn an interesting bunch with a variety of resumes. Traditionalists may frown at the fact that the Belmont distance has been reduced from a mile and a half to a mile and a quarter, but that development may have appealed to horsemen who otherwise may have skipped the race. As a measure of how strong the field is, the Derby winner (Mystik Dan) and Preakness winner (Seize the Grey) are in there, and neither is the morning-line favorite.
That designation goes to 9-5 Sierra Leone, trained by Mechanicville native Chad Brown, who has craved a victory in the Travers at his hometown track, but would certainly get an extra charge from winning a Belmont here, also. Neither the Derby nor the Preakness winner are even second choice on the morning line. That would be the undefeated but lightly raced Mindframe, one of three Belmont horses trained by Todd Pletcher, who has won it four times.
This race could go in many different directions, which makes the third leg of the Triple Crown all the more compelling. “I think that the Belmont this year, you could easily make an argument for it being the best of the three, out of the Derby, the Preakness or the Belmont,” said legendary Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who has won the Belmont four times and will saddle Seize the Grey on Saturday.
“I think that they have probably put together the best of the three.” Count Brown among those w.
