2017 Belmont Stakes Betting Analysis and Picks

The 2017 Triple Crown racing series featuring the top three-year old thoroughbreds in this year’s class comes to a close this Saturday with the 149th running of the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. This is the longest and most grueling test of the three races that make up the Triple Crown at 1 ½ miles in length.

Handicapping the 2017 Belmont Stakes

The actual field for this Saturday’s Belmont Stakes is expected to have 12 entries and the only thing we know for sure is that there will be three different winners this season in this three-race series since both Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming and Preakness winner Cloud Computing will not be competing for the third jewel of this crown. This should open things up quite a bit with a number of strong competitors taking aim at winning this final leg.

Win Ticket

The one horse that stood out from the rest of entries heading into this year’s Kentucky Derby in my mind was Irish War Cry. He actually closed as a 9/2 co-favorite to win that race along with Always Dreaming, but following a solid start he faded to 10th in the field of 20. I may have had this New Jersey-bred colt ranked a bit too high on my list, but I still believe that he is of champion caliber and more than capable winning this Saturday’s main event at Belmont Park.

Trained by H. Graham Motion with jockey Rajiv Motion getting the ride, this son of Curlin has already stunned the field by winning the Grade 2 Holy Bull at Gulfstream Park in early February over both Gunnevera and Classic Empire before winning this year’s Grade 2 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct leading up to the start of the Triple Crown racing season.

Place Ticket

With Classic Empire dropping out of the Belmont Stakes due to an issue with his foot, trainer Steve Asmussen’s Lookin At Lee is the only colt in Saturday’s field that also ran in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. Starting from the dreaded No. 1 post at Churchill Downs at 33/1 odds with jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard for the ride, this Kentucky-bred three-year old showed some tremendous resilience going head-to-head against Always Dreaming before falling back by 2 ¾ lengths to finish in second place. Two weeks later he went on to place fourth at Pimlico in this year’s Preakness.

A pedigree of Lookin At Lucky, he has yet to win a major graded stakes race this season, but he did finish third in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park on April 15 behind Classic Empire and Conquest Mo Money.

Show Ticket

Trainer Todd Pletcher was instrumental in Always Dreaming’s victory in the Kentucky Derby and I believe he may be in store for another strong showing in the Belmont Stakes with Tapwrit as one of this two probable entries. Veteran jockey Jose Ortiz was able to guide this Kentucky-bred colt to a respectable sixth-place finish at Churchill breaking from the No. 16 post at 27/1 odds and he is expected to once again get the ride on Saturday.

Sired by Tapit, he was able to establish himself as one of the top three-year olds with a victory in the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby back in March at a distance of 1 1/16 miles. I believe the extra time off to train for the longer distance of this race makes him a very attractive pick to finish in the money.

Longshot Pick

Anything can happen over the 1 ½ miles of dirt in the Belmont Stakes, which has been the site of a number of failed Triple Crown bids over the years. There is some added value in picking longshots to upset the field if you know where and how to look. The one colt in this year’s field that just might fit the bill is trainer Brian Lynch’s Meantime.

This Kentucky-bred colt will be making his Triple Crown racing debut after missing the first two races and what makes him a very interesting entry in this race is a recent second-place finish at Belmont in the Grade 3 Peter Pan Stakes on May 13. This could work to establish a bit of home track advantage for Saturday.