ELMONT, N.Y. – Forte didn’t make the starting gate for either the Kentucky Derby or Preakness, but the results of those races may have only served to validate the credentials of the 2-year-old champion. Mage won the Kentucky Derby. Forte beat him twice this spring. National Treasure and Blazing Sevens ran one-two, heads apart, in the Preakness. Forte beat them both in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. “It just adds to the frustration,” Todd Pletcher, the trainer of Forte, said this week. “What’s frustrating to me is over the years we’ve gotten 64 horses to the Derby and we couldn’t get him there. Move on is all we can do.” A bruised foot forced Forte to be scratched from the Kentucky Derby. It led him to being placed on a veterinarian’s 14-day list, essentially making him ineligible to run in the Preakness. Saturday, Forte will try to salvage a fruitless spring in the 155th Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park. Winning the Belmont without having raced in 10 weeks has not been done – and rarely been tried by anything resembling a contender – at least in the modern era. It is what Forte, who has not run since beating Mage in the April 1 Florida Derby, will attempt against eight others – including Preakness winner National Treasure – in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont. While the time between races is not ideal, Pletcher said had Forte been fortunate enough to have won the Kentucky Derby he would have been more worried about the two-week turnaround for the Preakness than the 12 furlongs of the Belmont. :: DRF Belmont Stakes Package: Save on PPs, Clocker Reports, Betting Strategies, and more. “I’ve just never seen him get tired, really,” Pletcher said. “The way he works and the way he gallops out and the way he recovers afterwards; I’ve never seen the bottom of him.” While Pletcher has won the Kentucky Derby twice, it is the Belmont where he has truly shined. Pletcher has won the race four times, beginning in 2007 with Rags to Riches, who became the first filly in 102 years to win the Test of the Champion. She did it by overcoming a stumble and beating Curlin, who would go on to become a two-time Horse of the Year. Pletcher’s other three Belmont wins – Palace Malice (2013), Tapwrit (2017), and Mo Donegal (2022) – have come with horses who were beaten in the Kentucky Derby and skipped the Preakness. Hello, Tapit Trice. A son of Tapit – who has sired four Belmont winners since 2014 – Tapit Trice is coming off a seventh-place finish in the Derby where Pletcher felt the horse was stopped a couple of times down the backside and was basically out of contention for the win by the quarter pole. “Like a lot of the Tapits, he’s not always laser focused and so I think he can get a little distracted,” Pletcher said. “But I think he’s going to appreciate the bigger, wider turns here and I think he’s going to love the distance. Now, we just need to allow him to get into that rhythm and that stride that he’s got. The mile and a half I think is what he’s been wanting.” Tapit’s influence is all over this Belmont. Tapit Shoes, who seems a cut below this group, is by Tapit. Arcangelo, Hit Show, Red Route One, and longshot Il Miracolo are all out of dams sired by Tapit. Arcangelo may be the most intriguing of that group. A lightly raced son of Arrogate, Arcangelo has shown steady improvement this spring, with a solid maiden victory at Gulfstream Park in March followed by a gritty victory in the Peter Pan here in May. Arcangelo’s third dam is Better Than Honour, who produced Belmont Stakes winners Rags to Riches and Jazil. “There have been so many people that have leaned into what the pedigree says about him and I think secondarily the biggest thing is we haven’t seen him tired after a race yet,” said Jena Antonucci, who as the 11th female trainer to start a horse in the Belmont is attempting to become the first one to win it. :: Bet the Belmont Stakes with confidence! Join DRF Bets and get a $250 deposit match bonus, $10 free bet, and FREE DRF Formulator! Arcangelo has been aggressive training this week, working five furlongs in 1:02.47 Tuesday when he wasn’t even scheduled to work. Arcangelo will be ridden by Javier Castellano, who, aboard Mage, won his first Kentucky Derby in his 16th try. Castellano is 0 for 14 in the Belmont, with three close seconds. Trainer Brad Cox won the Belmont in 2021 with Essential Quality, who was coming out of a solid effort in the Kentucky Derby. He sends out three in this year’s Belmont led by Angel of Empire, who finished third in the Derby. Cox is adding blinkers to Angel of Empire’s equipment, noting the horse had trained very well in them all winter long, but had not worn them in a race because he had run well without them in the afternoon. “I think we’re just hoping it propels him forward a little bit, gets him in the game,” Cox said. “He won’t be off the pace as far as he was in the Derby because they shouldn’t be going quite as quick.” Hit Show, a narrow loser of the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, finished fifth in the Kentucky Derby with a pretty good trip. That he flattened out some in the stretch could make him a question mark at 1 1/2 miles. Cox said Tapit Shoes is a horse on the improve, and though he thinks his best may come later in the year, he feels the horse, with his pedigree, warrants a shot in this race. Breaking from the rail, he will likely be part of the early pace under Jose Ortiz. National Treasure didn’t qualify for the Kentucky Derby and took advantage of a favorable pace scenario to narrowly win the Preakness Stakes over Blazing Sevens. He may not have as clear a pace advantage in the Belmont, but he is trained by three-time Belmont Stakes winner Bob Baffert and will be ridden by two-time Belmont winner John Velazquez. “He has speed, he’s light on his feet, and he gets over the ground well,” Baffert said. “He reminds me of Authentic” – the 2020 Kentucky Derby winner when that race was run in September – “a little bit, coming into his own. He’s well bred for the mile and a half.” Red Route One, trained by Steve Asmussen, comes out of a fourth-place finish in the Preakness. He’s one who would benefit from a decent pace. :: Take your handicapping to the next level and play with FREE DRF Past Performances - Formulator or Classic.  “I don’t believe him to have any trouble with the distance,” Asmussen said. “I think it’s a very good race, obviously a lot of talent in there, but I like him against this group at a mile and a half.” Il Miracolo looks like an outsider but the same could have been said for previous Belmont longshot winners Da’ Tara, Commendable, and Sarava. In two starts this year against Forte, Il Miracolo has been defeated a combined 32 1/2 lengths. Concerns over poor air quality as a result of wildfires in Canada led to the New York Racing Association canceling Thursday’s card. The conditions were expected to improve Friday and Saturday and it is anticipated the Belmont card will go off as scheduled beginning at 11:20 a.m. There is a 20 percent chance of rain with temperatures forecast for the mid-70s. Saturday’s Belmont card is stacked with nine graded stakes. Fox will broadcast the Belmont for the first time and has brought legendary announcer Tom Durkin out of retirement to call that race and the three that precede it. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.