If I'll Have Another wins the Belmont Stakes and becomes racing's first Triple Crown winner in 34 years, he will have done something rare and magnificent that a lot of excellent horses have tried and failed to do. This does not mean, however, that he is a good bet at 4-5 or that horseplayers should feel intimidated or unpatriotic for trying to beat him.

What are the odds that I’ll Have Another completes his sweep of the Triple Crown series?

If you ask most people (and toss out those who go overboard in either direction by saying “it’s a lock” or “he has no shot”), they will probably quote the 4-5 odds given him on the Belmont morning line.

Michael Matz does not want to win the 144th Belmont Stakes with Union Rags, the Kentucky Derby's seventh-place finisher, just so he can say, “I told you so.”

On the contrary, Michael Matz wants to win the Belmont Stakes with Union Rags to be able to say, with absolute conviction, “I told me so.”

There is really no way to practice training a horse to run in the Belmont Stakes other than actually running a horse in the Belmont Stakes, which is why Chad Brown, at the ripe old age of 33, will be glad to at least get the ball rolling on Saturday in the 144th running of America’s oldest classic.

Paul Reddam, a racehorse owner of manageable superstitions, chose to look upon the victory of I’ll Have Another in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes earlier this year as a good omen. Among the perks of victory was a winner’s circle ceremony graced by the presence of Beverly Lewis, known far and wide as Bob’s better half and, since the death of her husband in 2006, the keeper of a considerable flame.

When jockey Mario Gutierrez came to Pimlico to ride I’ll Have Another in the Preakness, he knew almost nothing about the race or the track. He had spent most of his career at little Hastings Park in Vancouver. And so he studied.

He went to the press box to watch prior runnings of the race on a video monitor, then returned to his hotel and studied more: “I watched past replays of the Preakness and the horses who were involved in the race. I did my homework.” Once Gutierrez felt properly prepared, he relaxed.

As I’ll Have Another tries to become racing’s first Triple Crown winner in 34 years, plenty of casual fans will be asking: Why is this feat so difficult? Why is it more difficult than it was in the 1970s, when three different horses in a span of six years swept the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes?

In April 1991, in a cemetary not far from Santa Anita, the mortal remains of Lazaro Sosa Barrera were boxed in a casket and lowered to the bottom of deep grave flanked by a tall pine and a flowering magnolia. A concrete slab was placed on a rim of dirt a few inches above the casket to protect it from the earth shoveled from above. A brass plaque affixed to a rough-cut granite boulder was placed at the head of the grave. The only information included on the plaque was Barrera’s name and dates of birth and death, along with the name of his wife, Carmen, who would join him there someday.

For all their battle-scarred cynicism about an often unpredictable game, horse-racing fans can also be romantically credulous about the justice of the racetrack when it comes to the Triple Crown. The very difficulty of achieving the sport’s greatest prize, which has now gone unclaimed for 34 years, is widely believed to reflect a harsh but fair verdict. We haven’t had a Triple Crown winner since Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed in the 1970’s, the thinking goes, because we have not seen their equal, and the racing gods will not allow pretenders to join the pantheon.

According to the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, the only parimutuel horse race for the forseeable future that merits a heightened level of security in order to protect the investment of the public’s wagering dollars is the 11th race on Saturday, June 9, at Belmont Park.