Top Betting Favorites to Win the 2018 Belmont Stakes

This Friday and Saturday mark the festivities surrounding the 150th Belmont Stakes, which take place in Elmont, New York, at Belmont Park. The preliminary races and coverage begin on Friday, on NBC Sports, at 5:00pm Eastern, and then resume the next day at 2:00pm Eastern time, also on NBC Sports. Then coverage shifts to NBC at 4:00, as the coverage builds to the running of the third race in the series comprising the Triple Crown. Justify enters as the favorite and also has the Kentucky Derby and Preakness titles already in hand (or hoof). Can he complete the Triple Crown and become just the 13th horse to do so? Take a look at our horse racing betting insights on the key favorites.

Top Betting Favorites to Win the 2018 Belmont Stakes

“At Belmont, a Triple Crown More Than Triples the Attention” https://t.co/gxAHgTPo4R

— Belmont Stakes (@BelmontStakes) June 5, 2018

2018  Belmont Stake Contenders and Odds

• Justify                                     4/5
• Hofburg                                   4/1
• Bravazo                                   7/1
• Vino Rosso                              8/1
• Tenfold                                                10/1
• Blended Citizen                       14/1
• Gronkowski                             25/1
• Noble Indy                               33/1
• Free Drop Billy                        50/1

Justify enters with 4/5 odds despite the fact that only 12 horses have won the Triple Crown — and just one since 1978. That horse, American Pharaoh, completed the sweep in 2015 — and had the same trainer as Justify, in Bob Baffert. If Justify pulls it off, Baffert would become just the second trainer to have two horses from his stable to win the Triple Crown. Justify has overcome other long odds, of course — no horse had won the Kentucky Derby without racing as a two-year-old since Apollo had done it, back in 1882, but he did it, on a sloppy course, beating Good Magic easily, and then he held off Tenfold and Bravazo down the stretch at the Preakness Stakes. He has the size and the build to hold up over the 1 ½-mile course at Belmont — the longest of the three races. Some wonder whether a horse like Hofburg, who did not race at Preakness, might have fresher legs, but it’s hard to pick against a horse with Justify’s momentum.

So what about Hofburg?

He went through a five-furlong workout on Sunday, his last hard work before Saturday’s race. He was able to finish the course in just over a minute but kept pushing hard after the wire, pushing away from pacer Good Samaritan. Hofburg has some solid finishes on his racing resume, such as a runner-up finish at the Grade 1 Florida Derby. At the Kentucky Derby, he came in seventh, 8 ¾ lengths behind Justify. He did get tangled up in some traffic in the early going, and so he had a huge deficit to overcome in the late part of the race. The five weeks of rest that he has had should bode well for him at Belmont. But will it be enough? Bravazo has looked speedy in training, finishing a mile in 1:42.60 in recent training, finishing his gallop-out from the 1 ⅛-point in 1:58. His trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, is impressed with the fitness that he has developed over the course of the racing season. Tenfold has also impressed with his training; neither of the horses seem to be showing any signs of strain from their hard finish at Preakness, where they gave their all to catch Justify down the stretch but came up just short at the line. As far as picking out of the favorites, I think you have to like Hofburg because of the fresh legs, but we have three other horses in the top four who simply delivered down the stretch at the Preakness Stakes, and there is a longer break between Preakness and the Belmont, which should give the other three horses time to refresh and prepare for the race. It’s hard to argue for picking outside these top four when you think about the trifecta or superfecta, but we’ll get to that in another article. Happy betting!