How to Handicap the Belmont Stakes

The final jewel of the Triple Crown is almost upon us. And yet again there will be no Winner of all three races.

In my opinion this is something race fans will just have to deal with for years to come. Why? The strive for mediocrity. You can blame it on drugs, too many races, satellite or even global warming, but facts are facts. The days of a Secretariat are long gone.

Perhaps one day we will see that freak of nature happen but not very likely. The breeding industry has all but assured that fate. Today's horses are just too frail.

OK back to handicapping the Belmont . This mile and a half marathon almost always brings nice priced winners across the finish line. Let us not forget the enormous priced Sarava, or Birdstone or Da'Tara. These are not exceptions they are pretty much the rule.

Even Summerbird paid a nice price to win. So how do we sniff out those plays?

Here are my 4 simple rules for handicapping the Belmont .

1.) Toss the favorite. I can count on one hand how many times the favorite has won the Belmont in the past 10 years. For the most part, in this race, the public and the experts are dead wrong. Since 2000 the favorite has won just 2 times and since 1990 a paltry 4 times.

2.) Look for a horse bred for the distance. How can you determine this? Pretty simple actually. You can use a free online tool called the 5 Cross Thoroughbred Pedigree on equineline.com. Just type the name of the horse in the box, click continue and there you have it,

So what are we looking for? We are looking for the horse's Center of Distribution number. If you want to know more about that, you can Google the term. But to keep it short, I'm just going to say you do not want to play any horse with a CD of less than +0.67. This may fly against the face of what the experts tell you, but just look at the past winners and tell me I'm wrong.

3.) Look for horses moving forward and not regressing. How do you know? You look for horses who won their last race easily, ran evenly or gained ground in the stretch, If a horse is moving into the Belmont from a race other than the Derby or Preakness or it was not a Graded Stakes Race, the horse must have won by 4 or more lengths and was the favorite.

4.) Finally, you will look for a horse with tactical speed. That means the horse can either go to the lead or rate 4^th or 5^th in the pack. That would be an E/P style according to Brisnet.

That's it. Then look for value, Make sure the horse is over 9/2 odds '" in fact the higher the better,

I hope this quick horse racing system helps you pick a nice winner at this year's Belmont and puts a lot of cash in your pocket!