Foo - Belmont Stakes--6:30 tonight

O.K., I know few people care. But, to a racing fan, this is arguably the most compelling race of the year, even without a Triple Crown threat.

I liked Master of Hounds for the Derby, and I'll back him again here. He had a lot of traffic trouble that cost him the 5 lengths he finished behind the winner in that race. A similar effort, without the trouble, could make him the winner today. The inside post should not be a problem for him, as he likes to run far back early, anyway. The smaller field, bigger track, and crazy-long stretch should let him run his own race without trouble.

Animal Kingdom is too tough to leave out of the mix, so I'll recommend an exacta box with Master of Hounds. A.K. could have taken the Preakness with a clean trip; what a great effort, though. The connections have little incentive to send him out today unless he can win(the purse is nothing compared to his stud value, which could be impacted today), so assume it's all systems go. If you like the big plays, like the super, I'd throw in the bombs. Third or fourth could go to anyone.

Best of luck to anyone who might play, and enjoy the spectacle if you tune in.

Not a racing fan, but I happened to tune in. Guess you won't be spending your winnings on a new Orbea. :cry:

It was interesting. As an animator, the coolest part for me was the 3D animation of the race before-hand. And I saw an incredibly beautiful paint horse that was one of the companion horses before the race.

I had to go for Shackleford, for the logical reason that there is a street named Shackleford 3 blocks from where I live.

I was not surprised that Shackleford couldn't get the distance. Nothing else about the outcome made any sense to me. I knew I was in trouble when the two t.v. handicappers took the same two picks as me, though. Gary Stevens' animated take also had the same outcome.

I'm glad someone caught the race. Sadly, racing, like boxing, has fallen from a top 3 sport to the point where few people even know that an important race takes place.

Chewybrian, thanks for the name. That helped me track down who did the animation. A place called, strangely enough, Horse Racing Simulation LLC (http://www.horseracingisfun.com/).

That race left me shaking my head. I've followed racing for years, having got my first horse (and also my current one) off the track.

Racing certainly isn't what it used to be, either with the races themselves or the breeding to produce the runners. Winning the Triple Crown seems to be a thing that fewer and fewer people are even thinking about. Consequently you have a lot more people going for a single race in the series, meaning fresher horses running against one who might be trying to go for all three. I think we will need to see a really spectacular individual come around (along with TONS of luck) before we will have another triple crown winner. These days it seems more about breeding for a horse that will develop speed earlier in its career, win a few high profile races and then retiring it to stud and hoping it does well in the breeding shed.

Horse racing is ****ed up

Another thing may be that thoroughbred horses are not getting faster (http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201106/humans-keep-getting-faster-why-not-horses).