Belmont Stakes Offers a Reset for 3-Year-Old Division

The 2021 Triple Crown started with Essential Quality  as the betting favorite and 3-year-old to beat in the May 1 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) as his trainer, Brad Cox, sought his first win in an American classic.

As the June 5 Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets (G1) at Belmont Park brings down the curtain on the famed series, Godolphin's Essential Quality is the betting favorite and 3-year-old to beat as his trainer, Cox, is still seeking his first win in an American classic.

But don't believe for a minute that nothing has happened on the road to equine glory in the last five weeks. If anything, the 2021 Triple Crown promises to be remembered far longer than most years where no one sweeps all three races and it should also generate a record number of rolled eyeballs.

That, of course, has everything to do with the Bob Baffert-trained Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit  failing both a post-race test and a split sample for the corticosteroid betamethasone, raising the distinct possibility that he will be stripped of his victory and a lengthy legal battle will ensue.

Yet regardless of whether Medina Spirit or the runner-up Mandaloun  is declared the winner of the Run for the Roses, the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes offers a reset of the Triple Crown with five starters from the Run for the Roses facing the Preakness Stakes (G1) winner in a 1 1/2-mile Test of the Champion that should provide a better sense of definition to the race for the 3-year-old championship.

"Yeah, nothing has been decided yet," Cox said about division leadership. "I don't know who you would vote for if the Eclipse Award was on the line today. It's a wide-open division to say the least."

Essential Quality, a homebred son of Tapit  , is the 2-1 favorite over seven rivals in the final jewel of the Triple Crown and a victory would wipe away much of the sting from the Kentucky Derby when he raced wide and finished fourth, suffering his lone defeat in six career starts.

Cox says his first impression of Essential Quality was that he had Belmont Stakes winner written all over him, and the way the son of the Elusive Quality mare Delightful Quality has bounced back from his loss on the first Saturday in May fills the Eclipse Award-winning trainer with confidence.

"We're in a great spot," said Cox, who also trains Mandaloun for Juddmonte Farms. "His last two works have been really good. Four or five days after the Derby, he seemed to fill out. With really good horses these days, you see that. The more you do with them, the better they get.

"It's very similar to what I've seen with (two-time female champion) Monomoy Girl ," he added. "She taught me a lot in that regard. The more she ran and the more she trained, the better she got. He's showed me that as well."

Continued improvement will make Essential Quality, last year's 2-year-old male champion, quite formidable Saturday, and the same could be said of John and Diane Fradkin's Rombauer  (3-1).

After finishing third by 5 3/4 lengths to Essential Quality in the April 3 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (G2), his connections opted to skip the Kentucky Derby and run in the Preakness on six weeks rest. Sent off at 11-1 odds, the homebred son of Twirling Candy   responded with an authoritative 3 1/2-length victory over Midnight Bourbon and the aforementioned Medina Spirit. 

Should he turn in an encore of the Preakness and capture the Belmont Stakes it would most assuredly put him in the driver's seat for the 3-year-old title heading into the major summer tests awaiting in the TVG.com Haskell Stakes (G1) at Monmouth Park (July 17) and the $1.25 million Travers Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course (Aug. 28).

"With the result of the Kentucky Derby being unfortunately up in the air, if you can put two runs on the board with no one else having those type of credentials, it's great," Rombauer's trainer Mike McCarthy said. "It's a competitive group with Known Agenda , Essential Quality, Hot Rod Charlie , and Rock Your World . The Belmont has a solid field with some very good horses."

While a win by Essential Quality or Rombauer would provide some clarity for a while, if any of Saturday's six other starters prevail it would spark a wild scramble that most likely will not be decided until November, when the Breeders' Cup is contested at Del Mar.

Trainer Todd Pletcher has three starters in The Test of the Champion, a trio of 3-year-olds that includes Known Agenda (6-1), Bourbonic  (15-1), and Overtook  (20-1). Pletcher has yet to train a 3-year-old male champion, but if one of his horses should triumph Saturday it will certainly make that a possibility in a year that already has seen him voted into the Hall of Fame.

St. Elias Stable's Known Agenda, a son of Curlin  , already owns a grade 1 victory having captured the Curlin Florida Derby Presented by Hill 'n' Dale Farms at Xalapa. Bourbonic prevailed in the Wood Memorial Stakes Presented by Resorts World Casino (G2), though the son of Bernardini   was 72-1 in that stunning upset.

Both of those horses were unplaced in the Kentucky Derby, with Known Agenda finishing a troubled ninth and Bourbonic 13th.

The Belmont Stakes also includes Hot Rod Charlie (7-2), an Oxbow   colt who won the Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby (G2) for trainer Doug O'Neill and the ownership group of Roadrunner Racing, Boat Racing, Strauss Bros Racing, and Gainesway Thoroughbreds. Hronis Racing and David Michael Talla's Rock Your World (9-2) can top that as the son of Candy Ride   owns a high-profile win in the Runhappy Santa Anita Derby (G1) over Medina Spirit.

Of course, if Japan's France Go de Ina  (30-1) wins the Belmont and heads back to Asia, it would turn the whole chase topsy-turvy. And let's not forget that another West Coast   or Arrogate, neither of whom ran in a Triple Crown race but were named the 3-year-old champion, could appear on the scene to dominate the summer and fall.

All told, though the 153rd Belmont may lack the drama of a Triple Crown bid or a battle between Kentucky Derby and Preakness winners, the impending reset adds the kind of excitement that will allow an American classic to live up to its billing.

"The division is still pretty wide open," Pletcher said. "Someone needs to put together a streak to take over leadership, and we have a lot of time to see if someone takes control. This seems like a good group of 3-year-olds with diversified running styles. It should be a very interesting Belmont."

Indeed it should.