2024 Belmont Stakes Predictions, Picks For Triple Crown Race

Poor Mystik Dan, who won the race the odds said he would not, then dropped the one the numbers crunchers figured he could.

Two-and-a-quarter lengths.

The distance between Mystik Dan merely being in the field for Saturday’s Belmont Stakes or being a thoroughbred running for history this weekend was relatively small. That was the colt’s gap behind Preakness Stakes winner Seize the Grey.

Mystik Dan, the Kentucky Derby winner, was most certainly game on a muddy track in the Preakness, there was just no closing kick as the winner went wire-to-wire. And while there is no shame in completing the exacta of a Triple Crown race, the raw numbers are passing judgement now.

After posting a 100 Beyer Speed Figure in the Kentucky Derby, Mystik Dan went backward with a 97 in the Preakness.

Perhaps it was the wet track and perhaps it was a slower pace from a field half the size of what it was at Churchill Downs, with less options to set a blistering pace. Muth, the projected speed and expected favorite, was scratched midweek because of a fever.

But Mystik Dan had mud in his pedigree and won his only other race on an off track in dominating fashion in the Southwest Stakes. One by one, the excuses melt away.

In the Preakness, Mystik Dan seemed to take to the wet track and traffic problems were not an issue. Neither was post position, with No. 6 Seize the Grey taking an early lead on No. 5 Mystik Dan. And if there was mud in his face, it only came in moderate amounts from the winner.

Content to let Seize the Grey set the early pace, Mystik Dan just never completed the game plan, taking back the first time through the stretch, then saving ground on the rail until the final turn when an initial pass attempt on the grandstand side came up empty.

Seize the Grey not only led the entire way, D. Wayne Lukas’ Grey colt veered slowly toward the crowd in the stretch, seemingly to soak in the adoration from fans. A horse’s version of a moonwalk finish.

Yet a duel between those two for the final leg of the Triple Crown, this is not.

The heavy favorite Saturday at 9-5 on the Belmont Stakes morning line is Sierra Leone, who just missed winning the Derby to Mystik Dan in a historic three-way photo. Sierra Leone hasn’t raced since, with Mystic Dan taking to take to the track for the third time in five weeks.

Also among the favorites is the lightly raced Mindframe (7-2), while Mystik Dan (5-1) and Seize the Grey (8-1) round out the top four betting choices.

Kudos to Mystik Dan for winning the Derby at 18-to-1 odds, and Seize the Day for rolling to the Preakness win at 9-to-1, but the Belmont favorite is simply showing too much to be denied. In five previous races, Sierra Leone has three wins and a pair of seconds by a nose.

The last time a Derby winner lost the Preakness then won the Belmont was in 1995: Thunder Gulch.

We’ll take Sierra Leone to win, with Mindframe completing a boxed exacta in just his third career race. And with the Belmont at Saratoga Race Course this year, thus reduced to 1 1/4 miles from its normal 1 1/2-mile slog at Belmont Park, it will be a determined Mystik Dan to complete the boxed trifecta.