Belmont Stakes: Rachel Candelora's runner-by-runner guide

For the second year running, the Belmont Stakes is being held at Saratoga Racecourse, in upstate New York, due to construction at Belmont Park. 

Once again, due to the configuration of Saratoga, the last leg of the Triple Crown will be run over a mile and a quarter as opposed to its traditional mile and a half. 

Here’s a guide to all the runners for the 157th edition of the Belmont Stakes, which you can watch live on Racing TV. 

The Amo Racing-owned son of Quality Road began his career in Ireland with Adrian Murray, winning a Leopardstown mile maiden on debut before finishing down the field in the National Stakes at The Curragh last September. 

Shipped to the US, and switched to dirt for the first time, he stayed on to finish a never nearer third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar – a race that has not worked out very well. 

After this, Hill Road was switched to the barn of Chad Brown and was aimed at the Kentucky Derby but some “developmental aches and pains” intervened and he was rested over the winter. 

He made his belated debut for Brown, in March, in the Tampa Bay Derby, finishing a closing third behind subsequent Kentucky Derby fifth Owen Almighty. 

Hill Road was then sidelined again, this time by a fever, and reappeared in the Peter Pan Stakes at Aqueduct in May. 

In this traditional New York Belmont Stakes prep, Hill Road rallied  to collar the long-time leaders and win by three-quarters of a length. 

This success was even more impressive considering he never switched leads in the stretch, something his trainer has been working on in the mornings. 

Hill Road has shown that he can close into slow early fractions and he is crying out for a mile and a quarter. 

Brown, who had been leading trainer at Saratoga for the last four years, has yet to win a Belmont Stakes. He now gets the assistance of two-time Belmont Stakes winning and multiple Saratoga champion jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. 

Coming off a valiant win in the Kentucky Derby five weeks ago, where not enough focus was given to the fact that just strides out of the gate he clipped heels and almost came down. 

Sovereignty then skipped the Preakness Stakes as his connections wanted to give him more time between races leading into the Belmont Stakes – a tactic that has produced 14 Belmont Stakes winners since the year 2000. 

Giving Sovereignty extra time between his races was not due to any fault of the horse rather the long-standing training tactics of Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, who believes patience and letting horses develop is the best training tool. 

According to Mott “if there ever would have been a horse you could have tried the Triple Crown with, he might have been it – big, sturdy, came out good. There was no reason physically why we couldn’t have run in the Preakness. We had no excuse other than we didn’t feel like it.” 

Since his Kentucky Derby success, which Journalism’s Preakness victory has franked, Sovereignty has been up at Mott’s homebase of Saratoga and has been training “aggressively” and will have the advantage of having raced once over the Saratoga surface as a two-year-old. 

Mott, who won the 2010 Belmont Stakes with Drosselmeyer, has an ace up his sleeve with Sovereignty as the only horse who is 100% stamina proven and while this is not the true “Test of Champions” that the mile and a half Belmont normally is, Saratoga tends to be a deep, tiring racetrack which will suit Sovereignty’s stamina. 

Also, with the late entry of Crudo, there should be enough speed for him to close into. 

Three-time Belmont stakes winning trainer Bob Baffert has finally gotten Rodriguez to a Triple Crown race. 

He was scratched Derby week due to a developing a small quarter crack, which also kept him out of the Preakness. 

Luckily the quarter crack has now healed and this son of Authentic is back on track after a series of three very good workouts. 

This front runner most recently won the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct by 3½ lengths in a fast time. 

The blinkers were removed for the first time in the Wood and “Big Money” Mike Smith got aboard and he helped settle Rodriguez. 

The Belmont will be his belated first try at Grade One level, but he has the assistance of the most experienced rider in the field in 59-year-old Smith, who seeks to win his fourth Belmont Stakes. 

Smith was also aboard the Baffert-trained colt who holds the track-record time over 1¼ miles at Saratoga – Arrogate in the 2016  Travers, who made all the running to shatter the clock. On the first two days of this boutique meeting, the Saratoga dirt track has been playing to speed. 

When it comes to the Belmont Stakes, no owner wants to win it more than proud New Yorker Mike Repole and it was he who had his trainer Todd Pletcher enter Uncaged into the race. 

In the build-up to the Belmont there seemed like there would only be six runners, which factored into Repole’s decision to run the horse. At the time he quipped “I guarantee a top-seven finish.” 

Repole owned part of the 2022 Belmont Stakes winner Mo Donegal and has had three second-placed finishes in the Belmont. 

Uncaged, a son of Belmont Stakes runner-up Curlin, is two for four in his career, both wins coming on a muddy track including at Saratoga on debut – making him the only runner in the field to own a win at The Spa. 

Unfortunately, last time out, on his stakes debut he finished a well beaten sixth in the Peter Pan Stakes (behind Hill Road) at Aqueduct. 

On the plus side, he gets the services of jockey Luis Saez, who won the Belmont last year, when staged at Saratoga, on the 17-1 longshot Dornoch. 

Four-times Belmont Stakes winner Todd Pletcher’s first string and the last horse to be placed into consideration for this race after the threat of a short field came up, much like his stablemate Uncaged. 

Unlike Uncaged, this son of Triple Crown winner Justify, is a stakes winner having blown away the field by over seven lengths in the Sir Barton Stakes at Pimlico on the Preakness undercard on only his third start. 

He made all the running to win the Sir Barton, the same tactics he employed when winning his maiden at Keeneland over 7f, also by over seven lengths. 

Pedigree wise, and the way he moves through his races, suggests that the extra distance of the Belmont will suit him, it is just whether he can handle the step up against the level of competition he will now face. 

Once again, he will get the services of two-time Belmont winning rider John Velazquez (one of the winning-most jockeys of all time at Saratoga), who has been aboard him for all his starts, and looks to be the outside pace in the race. 

I expect Velazquez to try to sit just off Rodriguez and not get into to a speed duel that would set the race up for the closers. 

The Kentucky Derby third feels like the forgotten horse coming into this race, given that the first two home in the Derby are being marketed as the poster boys of a heavyweight rematch. 

A Son of McKinzie, Baeza was just a neck behind Journalism in the Kentucky Derby when finishing a fast well after having to weave through rivals in the stretch. 

As the reserve in the Derby, he had to break from gate 19 of 19. He was not able to get a decent early position and then encountered traffic when making his run. 

While on form he is only a maiden winner, his placed efforts in the Kentucky Derby and the Santa Anita Derby show that he is not one to ignore. 

Since the Derby he shipped back to California and has worked really well and first impressions from horse watchers at Saratoga was that he looked really bright when he arrived last Sunday. 

He's regally bred and is named after Braulio Baeza, the Hall of Fame jockey who won the Belmont three times. Jockey Flavien Prat will be aboard him for the second time on Saturday. 

The Preakness winner, and Derby runner-up, is the only horse this year who will contest all three legs of the Triple Crown over the five-week American Classic season. 

Currently rated the top three-year-old in the US he overcame trouble in the Preakness with his jockey Umberto Rispoli having to barge his way out of a pocket, but once clear he made up five lengths to pass longshot Gosger near the finish. 

Outside of a few superficial cuts, Journalism appears to have come out of the Preakness in good condition before shipping to Saratoga to train up to the Belmont. Since the Preakness he worked once over 4f and work watchers said that the colt looked like he had plenty of energy after his two hard races over a two-week period. 

Gate seven is ideal for Journalism as his jockey Umberto Rispoli will be able to stay outside and hopefully not get stuck in a pocket again. 

This is the first weekend that Rispoli has ever ridden at Saratoga but his agent has got him six dirt mounts in the run up to the big race. Trainer Mike McCarthy is also looking for his first success at Saratoga, having previously saddled 11 runners without success. 

UK-based trainer Jamie Osborne is looking to emulate Dermot Weld, who in 1990 saddled Go and Go to win the Belmont Stakes. 

In the Preakness Stakes, Heart of Honor broke slowly and then stayed on past beaten rivals in the stretch to finish a never dangerous fifth. 

However, the way he stayed on convinced Osborne that he should continue his US odyssey to the Belmont at Saratoga. 

He has reportedly trained well and connections have intensively gate schooled him so he has a better start. If he does break better, he may be part of the pace scenario, as he was up with the pace in the UAE Derby when he finished second. In truth, his overall form does not stack up with the big guns in this race. 

The Belmont Stakes is the oldest Classic in the US, and what better way to celebrate the news that the Breeders’ Cup is going to be staged at the brand-new Belmont Park in 2027, than a cracking rematch between the first three home in the Kentucky Derby. 

In the Derby, Sovereignty, above, reigned supreme, skipping away on a muddy track. However, the tenacious Journalism took the hit and delivered a knockout blow to win the Preakness two weeks later. Will Sovereignty stay king, will Journalism make headlines or will another name take the spoils? 

This column tipped, in order, gave the straight trifecta in the Kentucky Derby, and we will use the same horses again, just not in the same order. 

SOVEREIGNTY was the top pick in the Derby, and with that form boosted and a perfect preparation, he remains the top pick in the Belmont. 

I love how he is racing from his home stall, the mile and a quarter is his ideal distance, and I really like how, after the Derby, the Belmont was always the plan - it was not an afterthought. In the UK, at the time of writing, he is the favourite with the bookmakers, however in the US he is currently second favourite. Therefore, betting into the American pools might net a better price on him. 

In the Kentucky Derby write up, BAEZA was only the reserve, but never before have I wanted a reserve to draw into the main field so much as I did with him, and luckily he got in and finished a strong closing third. 

This run was even better than it appears on paper as he had to break from the widest stall, getting shuffled back, switching inside and finding loads of traffic, conceding first run to the top two, and then finishing faster than either Sovereignty or Journalism did in the final furlong . . . not half bad for just a maiden winner! 

Like the top pick, he has had the five-week break, with solid works, and now jockey Flavian Prat has ridden him once he will have a better handle on him for the Bemont. For all of these reasons, I am bumping him up to second (from his Derby 3rd). 

Logic would suggest that JOURNALISM is apt to regress some in the Belmont Stakes, considering all the obstacles he had to overcome and the taxing effort it took to win the Preakness. 

Also, over the mile and a quarter I think that Sovereignty and Baeza are the stronger stayers. An outside draw helps Journalism, but I just can’t look beyond the fact that Journalism has got into trouble in his last three races and his jockey will only be riding around two-turns at Saratoga for the fourth time in the Belmont. However, we know he is a class horse and even with some regression he should be able to beat the rest. 

While it goes against the grain to leave both Todd Pletcher trainees off any race ticket at Saratoga, neither of his runners here have convincing claims, so the final selection goes to RODRIGUEZ who should have featured in the previous two Classics if it were not for a pesky quarter crack, and he should be the one to set the pace and hopefully hold on for a small piece of it late. 

1st #2 Sovereignty 

2nd #6 Baeza 

3rd #7 Journalism 

4th #3 Rodriguez