A Peruvian-bred horse has never won a Grade 1 event in the United States, but the South American nation has made a major impact on some of the Northern Hemisphere’s biggest events through outstanding broodmares. The latest example came when Creator, out of Peruvian champion Morena, nosed out Destin to win the Belmont Stakes.

The three Triple Crown races were won by three different horses, each of whom won another major Grade 1 race earlier in the year. Their similar résumés through the first six months of the year mean that Creator, Exaggerator, and Nyquist all seemingly will go into the second half of the year with an equal chance to wrest the title as champion 3-year-old male, unlike last year, when that title and Horse of the Year were signed, sealed, and delivered as soon as American Pharoah swept the Triple Crown.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Trainer Steve Asmussen won his first Belmont Stakes on Saturday, and he kept wanting to relive the moment over and over Saturday night and into the wee hours of Sunday morning.

 “I woke up every 15 minutes to watch the replay,” Asmussen said at his Belmont Park barn Sunday morning.

The two-hour broadcast of the Belmont Stakes on NBC Saturday drew a 4.3 rating, the network said Sunday, down 6.5 percent from the rating of the same broadcast in 2013, when no Triple Crown was on the line as well.

Share for the broadcast was a 10, NBC said. Share measures the percentage of televisions in use at the time that are turned to a specific broadcast.

Creator’s final strides, nose victory over Destin in the Belmont Stakes means there were three different winners in this year’s Triple Crown races. Yep. Very, very unlike last year.

But there is a potential silver lining.

Although we don’t have another Triple Crown winner like American Pharoah to celebrate, Creator’s victory does set up an interesting second half of the year for this group of 3-year-olds.

ELMONT, N.Y. – It opened heaven and earth as soon as the 148th Belmont Stakes was over. That’s the kind of pull Creator had on Saturday.

Creator, a troubled 13th in the Kentucky Derby five weeks ago, just nosed out Destin at the end of the Grade 1, $1.5 million Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park, providing trainer Steve Asmussen with the biggest win of the year for him in a campaign that is shaping up far more celebratory than two years ago.

Garett Skiba has won the inaugural Belmont Betting Challenge. Skiba is believed to be the first handicapping-contest participant to win six figures on three separate occasions, having finished third at the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge and second five weeks ago at the inaugural Kentucky Derby Betting Challenge.

“It’s nice, I’m not complaining,” he said. “I woke up this morning, and thought I had some good opinions and that another six-figure score was within reach.”

Skiba wins $65,000 and a $10,000 BCBC seat and keeps his $40,655 bankroll.

ELMONT, N.Y. – The rain came too late for Exaggerator.

A proven commodity in the slop, Exaggerator was less than his best over a fast track in Saturday’s $1.5 million Belmont Stakes, fading to 11th in the 13-horse field, 14 lengths behind the winner, Creator. He was the 7-5 favorite.

Thus, Exaggerator’s Triple Crown odyssey ended with a thud. After a strong second to Nyquist in the Kentucky Derby and a dominant win in the Preakness, Exaggerator was a nonfactor in the Belmont.

Exaggerator, the Preakness winner and Kentucky Derby runner-up, is clearly the most accomplished runner in the Belmont Stakes field, and for that reason he will be the heavy favorite. He also will be overbet and vulnerable stretching out to 1 1/2 miles, which makes him a horse I cannot select on top.

Exaggerator has run very well in his last three starts against the best of his generation. It is only when you dissect all three races that it becomes apparent he was set up perfectly each time. In the Belmont, this might not be the case.

We took a look at both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, with an eye toward how some of the contenders matched up to similar runners in the recent history of those races. Let’s do the same here with the Belmont Stakes, but we’ll issue the same warning as in those articles.