With 18 stakes packed in over a three-day span, the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival offers a more concentrated schedule of top level racing than even Breeders' Cup weekend. The Belmont Stakes Fest is also unique (for North America at least) in that 5 of the 18 stakes are carded at 10 furlongs or further. The races include the 2-mile Belmont Gold Cup Invitational and, of course, the Belmont Stakes itself at 12 furlongs.
The vast Betmix Angler handicapping database provides an option for searching a sire's progeny performances for nearly every condition and situation. We took advantage of this feature to look at the sires with runners in the Belmont Stakes Fest long distance stakes (10 furlongs or longer).
The (North American) results for those 35 stallions is parsed out in the two charts below.
It was rather surprising to find that Speightstown, an Eclipse Champion Sprinter, ranked first among these sires with a 35% long distance Win % (along with a very healthy $57.70 Win Return figure). The WinStar Farm stallion has runners in Friday's New York S. (Competitionofideas) and Saturday's Manhattan S. (Qurbaan)
Hard Spun also has a pair of Belmont Stakes Fest runners and he's the runaway leader with a $131.50 Win Return from his 152 progeny starts in North American marathons. This makes his sons Rocketry (Brooklyn Invitational) and Spinoff (Belmont Stakes) worth long looks as longshot plays.
Another surprise was to find Tapit, sire of three of the past five Belmont Stakes winners, ranked so low in both charts. His long distances starters win only about 14% of the time and hit the board at a 34% clip. We can infer that they are often played by handicappers to do much better based on his -197.90 Win Return. It's true he has a larger number of starters (280) than many stallions in our sample. However, English Channel has a similar number of progeny starters (287) with better Win % (16.72%), In the Money % (44%) and Win Return ($32.50) figures.
Belmont Stakes Festival Distance Sires by Win%
Belmont Stakes Festival Distance Sires by Win Return
