Belmont Stakes Odds 2016: Latest Vegas Betting Lines Before Post Positions Draw

The final race of the 2016 Triple Crown season is missing some intrigue. Last year, the sports world sat on the edge of its collective seat as American Pharaoh sought to become the first Triple Crown winner in more than three decades.

Twelve months later, it's hard to conjure that same insatiable fervor. That's understandable. What American Pharoah did was generations in the making; there were parents and children who had gone their entire lives without seeing a Triple Crown winner sharing in history.

Nyquist, for a minute, seemed to be capturing the national attention in an even bigger way. Television ratings were up 7 percent from last year's Preakness, as scores of viewers tuned in to see the then-undefeated horse continue his trek toward immortality.

One problem: Exaggerator happened. In a weirdly run race, Exaggerator came from behind down the stretch and blew the field out, overtaking an exhausted Nyquist and a field that couldn't navigate the sloppy conditions. It was Exaggerator's fifth try in trying to take down Nyquist in a head-to-head race; he had about the same success rate going as the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Golden State Warriors.

Horse	Trainer	Jockey	Odds
Brody's Cause	Dale Romans	Luis Saez	12-1
Cherry Wine	Dale Romans	Corey J. Lanerie	15-2
Creator	Steve Asmussen	Irad Ortiz Jr.	20-1
Destin	Todd Pletcher	Javier Castellano	10-1
Exaggerator	Keith Desormeaux	Kent Desormeaux	11-10
Governor Malibu	Christophe Clement	Joel Rosario	n/a
Lani	Mikio Matsunaga	Yutaka Take	12-1
Stradivari	Todd Pletcher	John Velazquez	15-2
Suddenbreakingnews	Donnie Von Hemel	Mike Smith	13-2
Trojan Nation	Patrick Gallagher	Aaron Gryder	n/a

So, OK, fine. We won't have a Triple Crown winner. Sure. That just makes everything American Pharoah did last year all the more special. But we will have a rubber match between Exaggerator and Nyquist to crown horse of the year at least, right?

Nope.

An elevated white blood cell count caused Nyquist to withdraw from consideration for the Belmont, leaving Exaggerator to stand alone.

Exaggerator enters Saturday's race in New York as an 11-10 favorite, per Odds Shark. He's the only horse in the field at better than 5-1 odds, with the remaining horses largely consisting of competitors he's already vanquished in this Triple Crown cycle.

“It’s very rare in this day and age for a horse to handle the Triple Crown so well,” Kent Desormeaux said, per Ed McNamara of Newsday. “Exaggerator is very intelligent, very athletic, very sound and has the pedigree to get the distance. With all of his attributes, it doesn’t look like this third race will be a problem.”

Suddenbreakingnews is sitting as a second favorite but was only a fifth-place finisher at the Kentucky Derby and hasn't won a race since February. He's been a solid bet to finish on the podium—he's done so in seven of his nine races—but a three-win horse upsetting Exaggerator does not feel terribly likely. 

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Suddenbreakingnews is the discovery from Kentucky that he was a ridgling, not a gelding. Two undescended testicles were found when he underwent testing prior to the year's first Triple Crown race.

“He looks like a gelding, he acted like a gelding and that’s the way it was,” trainer Donnie Von Hemel said in a release before the Kentucky Derby. “The ultrasound revealed that he had two undescended testicles so he looks like a gelding and we never had any other reason to think otherwise."

Suddenbreakingnews is now listed as a ridgling.

The stories for Cherry Wine and Stradivari (both +750) aren't as fascinating, but both are considered outside contenders. Cherry Wine was (a distant) second behind Exaggerator at the Preakness, edging Nyquist by inches. Regardless of the race conditions, Exaggerator and Cherry Wine are the only horses in history to defeat Nyquist.

“Cherry Wine will run on concrete, he'll run on mud, he'll run on gravel, it doesn't make any difference. It wasn't the mud that moved him up, he's a good horse. He's a good horse that'll run on anything," trainer Dale Romans said, per Ryan Martin of ChurchillDowns.com.

Stradivari wound up fourth in the Preakness, racing for just the second time all year. This might be the case of a horse finally rounding into shape; of the three secondary contenders here, Stradivari feels dangerous given his limited work rate so far.

Governor Malibu is the only unfamiliar horse in the field. His last race was a second-place finish at last month's Peter Pan Stakes. He's only got two wins in six races, none in a Triple Crown-level field, so it'd be a major surprise to see him contend—even with Joel Rosario on his back.

No, this race is all about Exaggerator and whether he can be great enough to inject some life into a race that feels lacking in anticipation. One monster performance, and we could walk away from this Triple Crown cycle wondering if Exaggerator left a Triple Crown on the table by making a late break in Louisville.

One disappointing loss, and suddenly this Triple Crown cycle goes down as forgettable.