Belmont Stakes fair odds: Pletcher has the edge

A baker's dozen is currently under consideration for the Belmont Stakes, and with Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher conditioning a quartet of those contenders, he is 7-5 to win his fifth test of the champion.

The most likely of those four is Tapit Trice, a disappointing seventh in the Kentucky Derby, especially to me, who picked him. But he's a colt who is very much in the mold of three of Pletcher's four Belmont winners, including last year's winner Mo Donegal.

Mo Donegal was a troubled fifth in the Kentucky Derby and likely compromised by an inside draw. Tapit Trice did not have as much trouble as Mo Donegal but was closing into a fast pace. And his sire Tapit has sired four Belmont winners, including the Pletcher trainee Tapwrit.

The other likely Pletcher trainee among his contenders is scratched Kentucky Derby morning-line favorite Forte, who, along with Prove Worthy, would be Pletcher's first Belmont winner not to have run in the Kentucky Oaks or Derby five weeks earlier. Mage buttressed the Florida Derby (G1) form with his Kentucky Derby victory in Forte's absence, and certainly last year's champion 2-year-old male would be tough.

Among the non-Pletchers, Bob Baffert has the third, fifth and 11th choices on my line, and Brad Cox has the fourth and sixth choices. In total, though, those five 3-year-olds have only a 10 percent better chance of winning than Pletcher does.

I gave Sir Barton Stakes winner Arabian Lion a bit of a nod over his Preakness-winning stablemate National Treasure because of the Ragozin figures they earned. There is more on the line for National Treasure, though, as he would be the first Preakness-Belmont winner since Afleet Alex in 2005 and a certain leader of the division with a win.