2026 Belmont Stakes undercard picks: Best bets for Saturdays card at Saratoga
The 2026 Triple Crown concludes with the Belmont Stakes at 7:04 p.m.ET at Saratoga Race Course on Saturday night, but there are plenty of terrific stakes races before we get to the “Test of a Champion.”The action kicks off at 11 a.m.
ET, but we’ll focus on a few of the stakes races in the afternoon to try and pad our bankroll before the headliner at Saratoga.We’ll start with Race 7, which comes your way right before 3 p.m.ET.The first stakes race on the card will see a field of eight go a mile on the turf, and it’s no wonder that Chad Brown has the clear favorite.Brown has won this race four years on the spin, so expect No.
3 Segesta (7-5) to hold firm as the one to beat.Brown’s other horse, No.2 Sandtrap (3-1) of Ireland, is the second choice.We’ll try and end the Brown run with a different European invader, No.
4 Mandanaba (6-1).A French visitor with two wins in five tries against stakes competition, Mandanaba should have the class to give Segesta all she can handle in this tilt.The Pick: No.4 Mandanaba (6-1) to winPlenty of familiar names in this field, including the favorite No.
1 Nysos (9-5) and last year’s Preakness winner No.7 Journalism (5-2).Most punters will bet on this being a two-horse race between the chalk, but there is another contender at a much better price worth considering.No.
3 Antiquarian (6-1) is a serial winner with five victories in his 11-race career, and he’s coming off an impressive triumph at this distance at the Westchester Stakes on May 3.If the two heavyweights take as much of the money as we think, you could get a terrific price on a horse that will be more than comfortable in these conditions.The pick: No.3 Antiquarian to win (6-1)The final race before the big one, the Manhattan Stakes, is headlined by No.
6 Bright Picture (3-1).A French horse trained by the legendary Andre Fabre, you can expect the favorite to take a ton of action as horseplayers will know that Fabre doesn’t ship his horses to America unles...