Candy Boy, 13th in the Kentucky Derby on May 3, will skip the Belmont Stakes on June 7 in favor of the $500,000 Los Alamitos Derby on July 5, trainer John Sadler said Monday.

“We’re skipping it,” Sadler said of the Belmont.

Sadler said a lucrative local race, and a chance to avoid Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner California Chrome, were factors in the decision. Candy Boy was third to California Chrome in the $1 million Santa Anita Derby on April 5.

“If we ran our best race, we would have been second,” Sadler said.

ELMONT, N.Y. – On a morning when California Chrome had a routine two-mile gallop, five of his would-be challengers for the June 7 Belmont Stakes put in timed workouts at Belmont over tracks that had finally dried out after several days of rain. Unfortunately, one of those horses was injured and will not make the race.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Being based mostly in Southern California, California Chrome had rarely, if ever, seen a wet track. During his Triple Crown run, California Chrome has seen his share of them in Kentucky, Baltimore, and especially here in New York.

If you listen to his exercise rider, Willie Delgado, California Chrome didn’t appear to like it at Churchill Downs but floated over it at Pimlico. On Saturday, for the third straight morning, California Chrome galloped nearly two miles over a wet Belmont Park surface, and he seemed to handle it just fine.

[bc_video_id:325138:]California Chrome hasn’t had too many things in his path this year as he’s rolled to victories in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, putting him one step away from a Triple Crown sweep going into the Belmont Stakes on June 7.

Sure, he had to outrun 18 horses in the Derby and nine rivals in the Preakness, but he handled both tasks with aplomb. Worries over a tiny throat blister before the Preakness and concerns as to whether he’d be permitted to use a nasal strip in the Belmont proved to be unfounded.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Preakness runner-up Ride On Curlin will have his third rider in as many Triple Crown races when John Velazquez pilots him in the Belmont Stakes.

Velazquez, a two-time winner of the Belmont, replaces Joel Rosario, who is committed to ride Peter Pan winner Tonalist in the Belmont. Rosario replaced Calvin Borel, who rode Ride On Curlin to a seventh-place finish in the Kentucky Derby.

Billy Gowan, the trainer of Ride On Curlin, said he’s sorry to lose Rosario, but happy to have Velazquez.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Danza, the Arkansas Derby winner and third-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, will not run in the June 7 Belmont Stakes, trainer Todd Pletcher said Tuesday.

Pletcher said he was not happy with the way Danza came out of his half-mile breeze in 49.49 seconds Sunday at Belmont Park.

“Not happy the way he’s doing, think he needs a little more time, lost a little bit of weight,” Pletcher said. “We’ll give him a little bit of a break.”

ELMONT, N.Y. – Thirty-six years in the waiting, 12 furlongs to go.

California Chrome, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, arrived at the final stop on his Triple Crown journey Tuesday, when a horse van carrying him and Preakness runner-up Ride On Curlin passed through the gates of Belmont Park shortly before 10:45 a.m.

The van arrived following an approximately 4 1/2-hour trip from Pimlico in Baltimore. The van got stuck in a little rush-hour traffic near the George Washington Bridge before picking up a police escort from the Throgs Neck Bridge.

When California Chrome goes for a sweep of the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes on June 7, it appears that he will face 10 or 11 challengers, almost all of whom he defeated in the Kentucky Derby and/or the Preakness.

That’s the way the prospective field looked Monday, 19 days before California Chrome, the winner of the Derby and Preakness, will attempt to become the 12th Triple Crown winner and the first since Affirmed in 1978.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner California Chrome will be able to wear a nasal strip for the June 7 Belmont Stakes and all horses competing at New York Racing Association tracks will be able to wear them, effectively immediately, according to a press release issued Monday by the New York State Gaming Commission.

A decision on whether dual classic winner California Chrome will be permitted to use nasal strips when he bids for the Triple Crown in the June 7 Belmont Stakes should be made by Tuesday, according to a New York Racing Association official.