This is not your father’s Belmont Stakes . Hell, it isn’t even your grandfather’s. Think of it more as the year they dug the third jewel out of racing’s Triple Crown and replaced it with a zircon.
There won’t be any drama at Belmont Park on Saturday, unless a bunch of bulldozers decide to race each other. The track will be rebuilt over the next two years, so it won’t be mandating that 3-year-old colts, barely out of equine diapers, run a mile and a half for the first and last time in their lives. On Saturday, the distance will be cut to a mile and a quarter — the same as the Kentucky Derby .
And when the starting gate bangs open for the 10 horses, the venue will be the venerable Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. That may be a kick in the groin of tradition, but it ain’t a bad trade-off when you consider that the air around Saratoga Springs is a hell of a lot purer.
And when it comes to charm and beauty, Saratoga is a 10-1 favorite over anything you will find at Belmont Park’s home in Elmont, N.Y. Now with the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in the rearview mirror, we have a surprisingly good betting race.
Both winners of the first two legs of the Triple Crown are in the field, along with what some still think is the best 3-year old in the country, Sierra Leone. Despite his loss in the Derby to Mystik Dan, Sierra Leone was the early favorite for the Belmont — trained by Chad Brown, a local guy who was raised 13 miles from the track they cal.
