Belmont Stakes promises to be intriguing affair

The absence of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winners has added an element of intrigue to Belmont Stakes, the final leg of US racing’s Triple Crown.

Rather than detract from the race, the withdrawal of Super Saver and Lookin At Lucky has set the stage for a showdown between some of the best three-year-olds in the country.

The Nick Zito-trained Ice Box, the pre-race 3-1 favourite for the $1 million Belmont, was unlucky not to win the Kentucky Derby after getting blocked behind a wall of horses.

When he finally broke free, he flashed down the outside but could not catch Super Saver, who lived up to his name by taking the short cut along the rails for nearly the entire trip.

Ice Box bypassed the Preakness and was prepared specifically for the Belmont, a gruelling test of stamina which is run over a mile-and-a-half on one of the biggest tracks in America.

“That’s why it’s called the test of champions,” Zito told a news conference Thursday.

“They have been breeding horses for a couple hundred years in America, and that was the idea, to try to get them to go that far, try to get them to go that way.”

Ice Box’s biggest rival appears to be 7-2 chance First Dude, named after the husband of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

First Dude was an unlucky second in the Preakness after setting a blistering early pace. He was entitled to drop out when the field turned for home but fought on doggedly to finish runner-up and looks likely to run out the trip at Belmont.

“It’s a stamina race because you’ve got to be able to make the mile and a half,” First Dude’s trainer Dale Romans said.

“You don’t have to get as lucky as you do in the Derby. The best horse is going to win, the horse that’s best prepared.

“You look at the history of this race, it’s been great trainers that won it.”

With Super Saver finishing eighth in the Preakness to end any hopes of a Triple Crown winner in 2010 and Lookin At Lucky off the pace at Kentucky, Ice Box and First Dude could stake their claims as this season’s top three-year-old by winning the Belmont.

Ice Box’s stablemate, Fly Down, was listed on the third line of betting at 9-2 while the remaining nine runners were all at double figure odds. The sentimental favourite could be Uptowncharlybrown, who recently changed stables after his trainer Alan Seewald died in April, or Make Music for Me, trained by Alexis Barba, who can become the first female trainer to saddle a Triple Crown winner.

The Belmont is the oldest of the three Triple Crown races and Saturday’s running will be the 142^nd edition of a race that has been the crowning glory of the 11 horses that have managed to win all three.

The last was Affirmed in 1978 but the most enduring remains Secretariat, who completed the Triple Crown in 1973 by winning the Belmont by 31 lengths.

“It’s a beautiful thing, the Triple Crown, there’s nothing like it,” said Zito, already a two-time winner of the Belmont.

“It may put more grey hairs your head, but it’s the best thing in sports.”