First of all, I want to thank TGJB for posting the sheets for the top 3 finishers in recent Belmonts. I always find this historical look back at past TC and BC winners interesting and enlightening.

I have seen similar information on past Derby horses but this was the first time I have seen any past Belmont sheets. Immediately a huge difference jumped right off the pages and really got me interested in handicapping this year's Belmont:

In the recent past, horses fast enough to have a chance to win going into the Derby have rarely made a big jump up in the Derby itself. Typically, about the best the primary Derby contenders did was pair-up. There were exceptions (Proud Citizen, Victory Gallop and Silver Charm) but big jumps were pretty unusual. However, In the Belmont, big jumps appear to be much more common. Even better, the big jumps come off fairly obvious strong/explosive patterns. 4 of the past 6 Belmont winners have jumped up in the Belmont (3 of those 4 by three points or more) and 7 of the last 18 top-3-finishers did the same. All of those jump-up winners (except Point Given) also went off at high odds.

Here are the 4 recent winners that jumped 1.5 points or more: Point Given (3 pt jump), Commendable (4.5 pts), Lemon Drop Kid (1.5 pts), and Editors Note (3 pts).

Here are the other 3 recent top-3-finishers that jumped: AP Valentine (2 pts), Vision and Verse (3.5 pts) and Free House (1.5 pts).

I looked for some trends among those that jumped up and there were a few but the only real constant was a "classic" strong pattern (i.e., pair-ups and/or small forward moves in recent races). The one possible exception might be Commendable but you could even argue his pattern was very strong if you excused his poor Derby effort, which came on short rest. Despite what Beyer or Crist might say, the Belmont looks like a sheet players dream (with the possible exception of the year of the "Swale and Pine Circle exacta" :-)

Here is a quick look at some other factors. I will let you draw your own conclusions:

Trainers: 3 of the 7 jumpers were trained by either Baffert or Lukas. Not surprising.

Running Style: Only a few of the jumpers were closers and at least 3 of the 7 could be considered pressers or front-runners.

Breeding: Looking at the TGIs, we see that only 3 of the 7 jumpers had true "distance breeding."

2yo form: 6 of the 7 jumpers were relatively fast as 2yos (11 or faster). Only one (Vision and Verse) was slow and that was with only one start as a 2yo.

Top going into Belmont: 6 of the 7 jumpers were not exceptionally fast heading into the Belmont (4 or worse top). Only Point Given jumped from a top of better than 4.

3yo development: 5 of 7 jumpers had developed 4 pts or less compared to their 2yo top but, as I mentioned before, one of those (Vision and Verse) had only one start as a 2yo.

Path to the Belmont: 4 of the 7 had run in all 3 TC races, one went the Derby/Peter Pan route, one went straight to the Belmont from the Derby and one did not run in any prior TC race.

The bottom line: Obviously, this is not a lot of past data to base any strong conclusions on but, unlike the Derby, if you can find the "ideal developing sheet horse" - a horse at a price with a strong pattern that could win the race with a 2 or 3 pt forward move, then you just might have a good key for the Belmont. Consistent with other standard sheet-reading principles, if the horse has yet to develop much as a 3yo, then he may be an even stronger play.

I have not seen all the sheets/figures for the Belmont entrants but, of those that I have seen so far, Essence of Dubai is clearly the horse with the prototypical sheet and looks like a possible key. I look forward to seeing all the Belmont contenders sheets very soon. It looks like this could be a very playable race.

Good luck to all.

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." Galileo

Chris