Afleet Alex Heavily Favored to Take Belmont© Greg Melikov
Jun 9, 2005
Afleet Alex was installed as the 6-5 morning line favorite to turn back 10 challengers and capture the 137th Belmont Stakes on Saturday.
The Preakness champion, ridden by Jeremy Rose, breaks from post position 9, outside Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo, trained by John Shirreffs. Mike Smith guides the early 4-1 second choice that drew post 5 on Wednesday.
Andromeda's Hero, one of three entrants trained by Nick Zito, is the only other horse that ran in the first two legs of the Triple Crown. The 15-1 shot, eighth in the Kentucky Derby, drew post 7 and jockey Rafael Bejarano returns.
Rose began riding at Belmont after the post position draw to familiarize himself with the track "because it's so much bigger" than other ovals, conditioner Tim Ritchey told Brisnet.com.
Rose was on Wild Humor, a 25-1 shot that ran third after dueling most of the six furlongs in the seventh race and returned $6.30 for show.
"On a mile track, when you switch leads going into the turn, you want to put your horse in the race a little bit," Ritchey said. "Well, here (1 ½ mils) you want to switch leads, but you want to relax for a little while longer until at least halfway around the turn, if not the quarter pole.
"The more he rides over this track, even if it's only going three-quarters of a mile, the more he's aware of how big and sweeping these turns are and how far it is from the point of that turn to the wire will help him immensely."
In last year's Belmont, Stewart Elliott was criticized for his ride aboard Smarty Jones. He didn't have a mount at the track during the week of the big race and had only one other ride on the Belmont Stakes Day card before his horse ran second to Birdstone, trained by Zito.
Rose last October was aboard Afleet Alex when he was second to Proud Accolade in the Champagne Stakes, but many other jockeys have ridden more often at Belmont.
Three other colts also have raced at Belmont, including Riverberate, 6-1, who drew post 8. The son of Thunder Gulch ran three times.
He broke his maiden last September in a sprint with Javier Castellano in the irons, won an allowance race in early May with Shawn Bridgmohan up and later finished second to Oratory in the Peter Pan guided by Jose Santos, who stays aboard. The trainer is Sol Russo.
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