Sunday’s TimeformUS Highlight Horse: Runaway Posse is back at his favorite distance

Belmont | Race 10 | Post Time 6:22 p.m. (ET) | Go to the TimeformUS PPs

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This might be the toughest race on the card. You could make a case for any number of horses, and it’s very difficult to find the center of this field. El Talento (#1) will probably go favored off two strong local performances, but this is the toughest field he’s ever met. Furthermore, he’s likely to face pace pressure from Mineralogy and his stablemate Diamond Jim.

Air Vice Marshall (#5) is a tough horse to read. His dirt start two back was encouraging, and that’s not even supposed to be his preferred surface. However, he was awful as the favorite last time over a boggy turf course and must rebound here. I’ll use him, as well as the recent maiden winner, White Flag (#8), who beat next out winner Master Merion in his victory. He’s shown good versatility in his initial turf starts and may be ready for this step up in class.

I’ll use the aforementioned runners, but the contender that I think will offer the best value is RUNAWAY POSSE (#3).

While Runaway Posse has primarily run in route races recently, I’ve always thought he’s at his best around one turn, and seven furlongs is the perfect distance for him. He actually ran better than it appears last time when getting an impatient ride from Dylan Davis. Today’s rival Lord of Love beat him that day, but Runaway Posse encountered traffic in the stretch, which certainly cost him a higher placing. Now he gets a positive rider switch to Irad Ortiz, Jr. and Danny Gargan’s runners have been performing well at the end of this Belmont meet.

THE PLAY

Win: 3

Exacta Key Box: 3 with 1,2,5,8,13

Trifecta: 3 with 1,5,8 with 1,2,5,8,9,11,13