ELMONT, N.Y. – The 6-year-old gelding Tribhuvan lost the first 11 starts of his career. He lost at provincial racetracks in France and better-known racetracks in France. He lost in Sweden. He lost on turf, lost on all-weather surfaces.   Yet from those humble origins, in his 23rd start, which came Saturday at Belmont Park, Tribhuvan won the Grade 1, $750,000 Manhattan Stakes.   At 19-1, you might call Tribhuvan a surprise winner, but just one year ago Tribhuvan had set a furious pace in the Manhattan and held strongly for second behind top-class Domestic Spending.   Also, Chad Brown trains him.   :: Access morning workout reports straight from the tracks and get an edge with DRF Clocker Reports Brown now has won the Manhattan nine times. He’s won it four times in a row, eight times in the last 10 years. He’s won it with blue-blooded horses from world-renowned breeders, and now with a French import who needed 18 attempts to win his first stakes race of any sort.   And he won it Saturday because Manny Franco, scoring the second-biggest win of his career behind Tiz the Law’s 2020 Belmont Stakes victory, rode a speed horse the way a speed horse should very often be ridden. Franco and Tribhuvan broke on top in the 1 1/4-mile turf race, set a controlled pace under no pressure, and as he and his mount bent into the final turn, Franco, rather than trying to save, save, and save some more for the homestretch, went for it.   “The key is he opened up,” said Brown. “That’s what you gotta do with the horse. You just have to bottom the horses out. At the half-mile pole, I was yelling from the box seats, ‘Open up!’ I know 49 is all cozy and that, but I want this horse completely away from everyone.”   Away from everyone he went. After a quarter-mile in 24.78 and a half in 49.65, Tribhuvan began increasing his advantage. His two-length lead became four, five, six lengths, and as he passed the three-furlong pole, still moving smoothly, the realization dawned that this gelding was back on form, and no one was going to catch him.  “I knew I was the only speed in the race,” said Franco, whom Brown has used with greater frequency in 2022. “I just want to make sure I break good and put myself on the lead, and I was really comfortable with the way he was travelling.”  Tribhuvan led by about seven lengths at the quarter pole, never came close to being challenged, and hit the finish a totally dominant 3 1/2-length winner. He ran 1 1/4 miles over a firm course in a robust 1:59.54 and paid $40.20 to win.   The price was so high because Tribhuvan, who went from his 2021 Manhattan runner-up to win the Grade 1 United Nations, ended his 2021 campaign with a 13th-place Breeders’ Cup Turf clunker and began his 2022 season finishing fifth, beaten 10 lengths, in the Turf Classic on May 7 at Churchill Downs. Like many horses that weekend, Tribhuvan struggled over a wet, slick course.   “This horse got an easy lead and just stopped,” Brown said of Tribhuvan’s race at Churchill. “He didn’t like that turf at all. He nearly held off a great horse in Domestic Spending in this race last year while he was going faster than he did today. He’d been training well, and we were very confident that if he got somewhat loose in this race he’d be in the picture.”  Brown finished one-two again as Adhamo, who also hated the Churchill turf, split horses in midstretch and rallied on to finish second in a very encouraging performance. :: Bet the races on DRF Bets! Sign up with code WINNING to get a $250 Deposit Match, $10 Free Bet, and FREE DRF Formulator. “I was hoping to be a little closer,” said jockey Flavien Prat. “There was a lot of traffic.”  Gufo, the 2-1 favorite, went wide rallying from the tail of the field and couldn’t quicken sufficiently to get Adhamo for second, much less come anywhere near the winner.   Just behind third-place Gufo came Highland Chief, followed closely by the Brown-trained Rockemperor, who won a close finish for fifth over pace-chasing Santin. Imperator, In Love, a bad-breaking Channel Maker, and Japanese shipper Tokyo Gold completed the order of finish.  Tribhuvan, owned by Michael Dubb, Madaket Stables, Wonder Stables, and Michael Caruso, is by Toronado and out of the German-bred mare Mahendra, by Next Desert. In his last two starts in France, the ones that led to his private purchase and move overseas into the Brown barn, Tribhuvan won two races in a row. His connections decided to geld the horse, who still can get rambunctious, before his 2021 campaign, and that completely turned his form around.   Saturday, he had the right setup, the right rider, and, most of all, the right trainer to win on the biggest stage.