This week’s Belmont Stakes is billed as a showdown between Sovereignty, the Kentucky Derby winner, and Journalism, the Derby runner-up who polished his reputation with a gutty victory in the Preakness. That rematch, or that matchup of Derby and Preakness winners, makes the race at Saratoga on Saturday the most fascinating kind of Belmont for real fans. The puzzle is superior to the kind in which a single dominant horse goes for a Triple Crown sweep.

But there’s even more to this Belmont.

It’s a rematch not just of the 1-2 finishers in the Kentucky Derby but the 1-2-3 finishers, with Baeza a serious threat to continue his race-by-race improvement and score a mild upset with Flavien Prat riding for Santa Anita-based trainer John Shirreffs and owners Lee and Susan Searing of Claremont.

The

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