With Preakness Stakes-winning filly Rachel Alexandra out of Saturday’s $1 million Belmont Stakes, the door is open for several lesser-known but talented horses to win the third leg of racing’s Triple Crown.

No fewer than five horses that challenged long-shot Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird at Churchill Downs on May 2 will return for the “Test of a Champion,” the grueling 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes (ABC, 12:27 p.m. Hawaii time post time) at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y. In addition, a few quality newcomers are expected to provide serious competition.
Nevertheless, jockey Calvin Borel, who has ridden the winners of the Derby and the Preakness, is back on Mine That Bird and senses a jockey triple.
After the son of 2004 Belmont champion Birdstone ran a 50-second half-mile at Churchill Downs in his final workout for Saturday’s race, Borel was all but guaranteeing victory.
”We’re going to win it, no questions asked,” he said. “I loved the way he went today. He really came bouncing off the track once we were done. That’s what I love about him. He’s just so happy.”
There will be no Triple Crown champion for the 31st year in a row, but Borel can become the first jockey to win all three races aboard two different horses.
After walking today and galloping 11/2 miles Wednesday morning, Mine That Bird will be flown to New York later that day. That’s riding in style for a horse that traveled by van from New Mexico to Louisville and then from Louisville to Baltimore for the Preakness.
Trainer Chip Woolley says his horse could even be better than he was in the Preakness, in which he made a late kick and nearly overtook Rachel Alexandra, finishing second by a length.
”I was thinking last week he’s probably training better than he did going into the Derby,” Woolley said. “Calvin got the work I wanted out of him this morning. ... They just looked like they were bread and butter.”
Mine That Bird’s competition will come from among an expected field of 10.
One of the horses Mine That Bird beat in the Derby, Nowhere to Hide (17th), worked Monday, but his trainer said he won’t run. Nick Zito said in a statement that he and owner Len Riggio ”decided to pass on the Belmont and look for another spot for him.”
A look at some of Mine That Bird’s competition:
— Jerry Hollendorfer’s colt Chocolate Candy, who finished fifth in the Derby, breezed a half-mile Monday morning under exercise rider Lindsey Molina.
“He has progressed very well since he first got here (four days after the Derby),” Molina said of the son of Candy Ride. ”He just skips over the track. Today that was just galloping for him. I had to take another hold of him to keep him from doing more.”
— Four-time Belmont-winning trainer D. Wayne Lukas said his entries, Flying Private and Luv Gov, might have the right stuff.
“I think a horse has to have a high cruising speed and be able to maintain it to win,” said Lukas, whose last Belmont winner was Commendable in 2000. ”Those horses who are steady and can maintain it for a mile-and-a-half are the kind which is successful in this race. Both of mine fit that mold; whether they do it quick enough is the problem.”