Weekend Winners Club

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Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Belmont Stakes week is here again so it’s time to overanalyze it and make some picks. While others might give you some ridiculously obvious and unhelpful facts such as, “every time the Kentucky Derby winner didn’t run in the Belmont Stakes, it was won by a non-Derby winner,” we actually do real statistical analysis here, factoring in Derby, Preakness, pedigree, and other factors.
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It’s always fun to look back at the Triple Crown history and the statistics associated with it, and while reminiscing, see how this year compares. Nowadays we focus mostly on the Bob Baffert Era, starting in 1997 when he won his first of 5 Kentucky Derbies and 7 Preakness Stakes, and eventually training 2 Triple Crown winners in the past 5 years.
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Baffert had been in the game for a while, but not as long as the dominant Wayne Lukas, who had just ended a 3 year tear in which he won 2 Kentucky Derbies, 2 Preakness Stakes, and all 3 Belmont Stakes, a race that had been eluding him since he had won his first Triple Crown race, the Preakness in 1980.
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Lukas somehow avoided having a Triple Crown champion horse during that span, but did achieve the training Triple Crown in 1995 with 2 different horses. Since then he has only mustered 4 Triple Crown race wins, but he’s been around a long time, and key members like his son and Todd Pletcher left his team after that peak.
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After sweeping the Derby and Preakness in 1997-98, Baffert continued to have success but mustered only 1 Belmont win until 2015 with the first of his 2 Triple Crown Champion horses. But why do we keep talking about trainers that don’t have a horse in the race? It’s good to set the stage and the frame of reference for any analysis. Meet the field for this year.
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This picture of the Belmont Grid is pretty but you can get the real version here to get all the info.

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Angle 1: The Trainer

One trainer who is in the race is Pletcher, who has 3 Belmont wins just like Baffert, the first in 2007 with only the 3rd filly to ever win it. Since then he’s won it 2 of the past 6 years, one with a Tapit colt. Tapit has sired 3 of the last 5 Belmont champs. This year, Todd has 2 in the race, including a Tapit colt, who is also the son of a mare by Touch Gold, who spoiled Baffert’s first Triple Crown attempt with his 1997 Belmont win. See how we went full circle there with pedigree and trainers?
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So if it seems Todd is playing with a stacked deck, he is. You could also say Casse is stacking the field. It’s true, he comes in with Preakness winner War of Will who he claims was the best Kentucky Derby horse but was 8th in that race after his jockey caused 2 very dangerous incidents, getting the real winner disqualified by running up on his heels, as 6 horses passed him.
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But Casse also has Sir Winston who looked good for 2nd in the Peter Pan last out after not getting anywhere near the winners circle in his 3 Derby preps. In the Pan, he beat Intrepid Heart, Pletcher’s Tapit colt, who did stumble at the start but also was passed in the stretch very easily. But the stumble and the fast pace must have been good enough excuses for Todd and he is here to win.
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Obviously Todd is the key guy to beat here this year and any year to be honest, especially with 2 horses. Bill Mott has also won the Belmont among many other big races. Dale Romans has won the Preakness and now so has Mark Casse. Mark Hennig is a top trainer but has yet to win a Triple Crown race.
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Angle 2: Affect of Derby, Preakness, and other preps.

In the Baffert Era, there have been 22 Belmont Stakes. 15 were won by horses that ran in the Kentucky Derby. Only 4 have been won by Preakness champs, and only 2 others that even ran in the Preakness. 2 of the 4 Preakness champs were also Triple Crown champs. The other 2 were the best 3yos of the year, Baffert’s Point Given who should have won the Derby, and Afleet Alex who also unlucky in Kentucky.
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None of this bodes well for WOW or any other Preakness horse, so we’re throwing him, Everfast and Bourbon War out of the winner’s circle. Bourbon War could finish in the money but Everfast most likely won’t. He’s still a maiden and will not achieve his first win this weekend. He has a good trainer but followed up his last 2nd place finish with 3 losses by double digit lengths each.
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10 of 22 Belmont wins were by horses that ran in the Derby but not the Preakness. Enter Master Fencer, Tax, Spinoff, and Tacitus, the obvious favorite here who finished 4th in the Derby after winning both his graded prep races, and is also a Tapit colt. Master Fencer was 7th, 1 slot ahead of WOW.
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The other 2, Tax and Spinoff, stunk in the Derby but it was a sloppy crowded field with WOW causing accidents, so good excuses. And keep in mind, 3 of the Belmont champs during this era were 12th, 13th, and 17th in the Derby, so whatever excuses they had in the Derby that year must have been valid.
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The last group is obviously horses that didn’t run in the Derby or the Preakness. All 6 of these finished 1st or 2nd in their prior race, which was either a prep here at Belmont or at Pimlico, normally in May, except for Kentucky Oaks champion Rags to Riches. This doesn’t bode well for Intrepid Heart with his 3rd place in the Peter Pan, but like we said there’s an excuse. It does look good for Sir Winston and technically Joevia, who won a Monmouth stakes race after finishing 13 behind Tacitus in the Wood.
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Angle 3: Pedigree

Now we return to pedigree. Before Tapit, from the AP Indy sireline, decided he wanted to be the all time leading sire of Belmont winners, the Raise a Native (RAN) sireline was dominating to the tune of 75% Belmont champs during the Baffert Era. And Storm Cat finally jumped into the mix last year, getting his first Derby and Belmont win, 5 years after his death and 30 years after his first stud fee.
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Triple Crown race winners and sirelines, 1995-Present.

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Storm Cat was the greatest American sire of all time, and he was part of the Northern Dancer (ND) line. The Belmont and Triple Crown in general have been heavily dominated by the RAN, ND, and AP Indy (Bold Ruler) lines for decades. In the past 30 years, only 3 Belmont winners were from a different sireline than those 3. Remarkably, none this year are from the RAN line, but 4 each from ND and API.

So who’s not in the club? Master Fencer, whose paternal great grand sire was Sunday Silence, one of those unlucky horses who won the Derby and Preakness but narrowly lost the Belmont in 1989. Tax is part of that same Turn-To sireline that won multiple Belmont Stakes but none since 1980. So not impossible for either of these, just less likely. Ultimately all of them are directly from the Phalaris (1913) sireline, and all are well bred.
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We mentioned Intrepid Heart’s sire Tapit and his mare sired by Belmont champ Touch Gold. Sir Winston, who again beat him in the Peter Pan, is a combination of Breeders Cup Classic champ Awesome Again, and a mare by Preakness and Belmont champ Afleet Alex, the best 3yo that year. That’s why we certainly can’t afford to overlook either of these.
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Angle 4: The Pace

People talk a lot about pace in the Belmont but usually don’t know what they’re talking about. I looked at running styles of Belmont champs in the Baffert Era. 6 were EP types, 7 were P types and 7 were S types, so that’s a very good distribution. We wouldn’t expect any E types to win, and yet 2 of those also did, including the amazing Justify last year. So we can’t really throw any out based on that, but Joevia would be the least likely by far.
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It seems to favor the early pressing runners this year as usual. That would favor Tax, Intrepid Heart, Spinoff, and War of Will who should be close behind expected pacesetter Joevia. Everfast, Tacitus, and Sir Winston would normally form a mid pack in this case behind those leaders. Cloud runners Bourbon War and Master Fencer would likely need to run earlier than usual to have a chance.

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Final Analysis:

From this analysis we were able to throw out most of the field from the winner’s circle already, and we’re left with the most likely winners: Tacitus, Intrepid Heart, Sir Winston, and Spinoff. Tax just isn’t quite making the cut with the trainer who’s won only 3 graded stakes races and the weakest sireline. Master Fencer also has the same sireline and a trainer in his 2nd American race ever.
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This is not to say that the others can’t finish ITM because most of them are capable of doing so on their best day and if things go right for them. They are just unlikely to WIN based on the facts. Remember, War of Will is a nice horse, but he’s not the best 3yo in training by any means, which the previous Preakness/Belmont winners all were. Based on all of this here are the best picks:
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Key picks on top end of exotics:
Intrepid Heart
Tacitus
Sir Winston
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Middle of exotics:
Tax
Spinoff
Master Fencer
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You could just wheel the rest at the bottom of the super except for Everfast. I want to throw out WOW altogether and that would increase the payouts, but then he would be guaranteed to finish ITM just to bust my bets. Then again it’s always bad protocol to wheel all except one, no matter how much sense it makes. So wheel all at the bottom.
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