Smarty Jones will attempt to establish himself as a racing great this evening when he battles eight other horses in the 136th Belmont Stakes with the Triple Crown hanging in the balance.
The Kentucky Derby and Preakness champion is unbeaten in eight career starts and needs to master the 1½-mile Belmont track to win the final jewel of US thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown series.
Five times in the past seven years a colt needed a Belmont Stakes victory to become the 12th Triple Crown winner but succumbed to bad luck, better horses or miserable weather.
In fact, the year after Affirmed won the Triple Crown in 1978, the first in a long line of Belmont disappointments occurred when Spectacular Bid stepped on a safety pin before the race.
Needing a Belmont victory to become the fourth Triple Crown winner of the 1970s, the colt finished third. Few would have guessed 26 years later the industry would still be searching for its next series champion.
Expecting to be the top Triple Crown spoiler is Purge, the champion of the Grade II Peter Pan Stakes at Belmont Park, but a colt Smarty Jones has already beaten twice.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)