Exclusive | The horse Bobby Flay couldnt sell is giving the celebrity chef a long-shot Belmont Stakes dream

SARATOGA SPRINGS — At 15-1 odds, Crudo is a long shot to outrun Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty and Preakness champion Journalism to the wire in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes at Saratoga.One could argue, however, that this outcome would be no more of a surprise than the circumstances that led Crudo into the Triple Crown race in the first place for owners Bobby Flay and Jimmy Ventura and Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher.“Jimmy and I were going to buy him as a pinhook proposition — we bought him as a weanling and we were going to sell him as a yearling.We brought him to the Saratoga [Fasig-Tipton] sale, and he didn’t sell, so we kept him,” Flay, the chef, restaurant magnate and Food Network star told The Post early Friday morning before visiting Crudo.“I don’t usually race colts.

I usually race fillies only.But I have him, so he’s racing, and he’s turned out to have talent,” Flay continued.

“The Belmont Stakes is New York’s most important race and as a New Yorker, it’s clearly important to me.”Flay, 60, says he’s been watching horse racing since his teenage years when he and his friends from the Yorkville neighborhood in upper Manhattan would cut school and take the A train to Aqueduct.The Belmont Stakes has long been a staple of Flay’s social calendar.“I go to the Belmont every year.I usually take 20-30 people to Belmont Park and make a day out of it,” Flay said.

“It’s become a tradition where I have people over to my house for brunch, everyone comes dressed in their racing gear — suits, summer dresses, hats.I feed them in the morning and then put everyone in cars and we go to Belmont and we have a day.”He said those nights usually end with a group dinner at Wolfgang’s Steakhouse on 33rd Street.

But Saturday, the stakes will be much higher.On Preakness Day at Pimlico, in his third career start, Crudo won the Sir Barton Stakes by 7¹/₂ lengths.Pletcher, a four-time winner in the Belmont, gave the son of 2018 Triple...