All-sources handle on Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, which featured the first Triple Crown triumph in 37 years, was down 10.5 percent from the record-setting handle on the Belmont last year, when California Chrome failed in his own attempt to win the Triple Crown, according to charts of the race.
After three failed attempts at winning the Triple Crown, trainer Bob Baffert could have been excused if he talked about how great an accomplishment American Pharoah’s Triple Crown sweep felt for him personally.
Now, after his dominant victory in the Belmont Stakes to become only the 12th ever to capture the Triple Crown, the debate shifts from whether American Pharoah can make history to his place in it.
To months in a year, inches in a foot, signs of the Zodiac, members of a jury, and days of Christmas, the number 12 now includes Triple Crown winners. American Pharoah put an emphatic exclamation point on the 2015 Triple Crown with a runaway victory Saturday at Belmont Park in the 147th Belmont Stakes, romping by 5 1/2 lengths in front of a crowd of 90,000 that included former President Bill Clinton.
Belmont Stakes order of finish and payoffs
Watch DRF Live! for all-day video coverage of the Belmont Stakes Day card here: http://live.drf.com/
The following is a list of DRF Plus resources and content related to Saturday’s Belmont Stakes card at Belmont Park.
Belmont Gold Cup/Belmont Stakes $2 daily double will-pays:
I find the Manhattan, race 10, unwieldy and don’t really like anyone very well, and find race 13, the second-level, $62,500 optional-claiming dirt sprint, unwieldy and don’t really like anybody. So, without strong opinions anywhere in the sequence, the idea of putting together an expensive play seems unwise. In fact, I’m going caveman style here and merely narrowing things to the horses I like best – no backups – in those two tricky races.
Through the steady rain falling in the dark at Belmont Park, you can hear them – the ghosts of Triple Crowns past, echoing through the mammoth grandstand and around the sweeping final turn.
