2016 Belmont Stakes Preview

The 2016 Belmont Stakes is coming up on Saturday, June 11th. This is the third and final leg of the Triple Crown, and although there will not be a winner this year thanks to Nyquist losing at the Preakness Stakes, this will still be a tough, exciting event.

For one, Belmont is the longest of all of the Triple Crown races. The Kentucky Derby is almost always the longest race that these young horses have seen in their careers, but Belmont is considerably longer. The horses that thrive over the distance of the Kentucky Derby don’t always tend to do well at the longer distance. The Preakness is shorter, so it’s been common to see a lot of back to back winners, but there’s a reason why there’s only been one Triple Crown winner in more than 30 years. These are different types of races, and they are so close together that it’s almost impossible to string together three victories in a row.

With that in mind, you need to look at which horses entered in the field before you make a bet at a site like Twinspires. First, let’s start with the fresh legs. It’s important to look at the horses running here that have not raced in the last few weeks. So while Exaggerator is the big favorite because of his dominant performance at the Preakness, he is likely to be far more tired than horses like Destin or Suddenbreakingnews that haven’t raced since the Derby, or horses like Governor Malibu or Forever d’Oro that didn’t race in either are going to have a slight edge when it comes to fresh legs.

There are some X-factors in here. For one, Seeking the Soul and Forever d’Oro both just won their Maiden races, and haven’t really shown what they’re capable of yet. This is hardly a place to test that theory though. Yes, there’s a chance they might be great. But going against the best in their age group without experience, that’s a recipe for disaster in about 90 percent of all cases. Seeking the Soul hasn’t even raced around two turns yet. With a morning line of 30-1 on both, there’s a nice reward, but we’re passing on them.

When you look at it more closely, there are three main contenders here: Exaggerator, Creator, and Stradivari. But with Preakness victor Exaggerator’s jockey Kent Desormeaux just getting out of rehab for alcohol abuse, we’re not certain how well this will go for him. His morning line of 9-5 leaves a lot to be desired, too. Creator, with 10-1 odds, seems the far better choice. He has good speed, and although he faltered a bit at the end of the Kentucky Derby, those problems appear to be behind him. He has a huge payout, good speed, and is far fresher than Exaggerator. Seems like a good bet.

Stradivari is a great horse and he showed us at the Preakness that he had good legs for late in the race. He could be a good win bet with odds of 5-1. Using a combo of Stradivari and Creator on exotics could have great returns as it avoids the chalk, too.