Belmont Stakes

This week I heard numerous ‘experts’ say that the Belmont Stakes is the toughest of the Triple Crown races to win. Based on their comments, I expect the term ‘expert’ can in this case be defined as “football beat writer who is assigned to cover horse racing because there are no football games being played that day.”

The Belmont Stakes is ¼ mile longer than the Kentucky Derby and 5/16 mile longer than the Preakness Stakes. But that doesn’t make it harder to win. The race is a mile and a half for each horse, not just one or two of them. They still all have to run the same distance.

Yes, the Belmont has stopped quite a few Triple Crown bids lately. That doesn’t necessarily make it the toughest race, because someone still won. And yesterday, for instance, that someone was Da’ Tara.

Da’ Tara won a maiden race at Gulfstream in January. Since then he was 3rd in an allowance, 9th in the Florida Derby, 5th in the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs, and 2nd in the Barbaro Stakes on Preakness day.

Not exactly a sterling résumé. Does the fact that the horse that won the Belmont wasn’t good enough to run in the Derby and Preakness mean that the Belmont was tougher?