How Forte Stacks Up Against Preakness Winner National Treasure

National Treasure, meet Mr. Forte. Forte, here’s a fella we’ve been wanting you to meet, Mr. National Treasure. Hope you two boys get along!

The $1.5 million 2023 Belmont Stakes on June 10 has got a prospective field and then some. Forte, the strongest Kentucky Derby favorite to get scratched from the race on race-day morning in a few years, is apparently well over his bruised foot now and has been looking especially fit at his trainer Todd Pletcher’s local track, Belmont.

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His rival, National Treasure is a sneaky sort of latecomer to the Class of 2023’s Triple Crown party, will be trying to ice his Preakness win by going the brutal mile-and-a-half, and, according to his pedigree, he should handle the length of the race, but we don’t know about how National Treasure will handle those great wide turns at what horsemen call the Big Sandy, after the high quotient of Long Island sand in the dirt. His storied trainer, Bob Baffert, thinks he will handle the turns fine, but the jury’s out on that one.

With the draw on June 6, Angel of Empire is looking highly likely, and the Brad Cox-trained horse showed tidily behind Mage and Two Phil’s in the Derby, walking away with an improved speed figure topping 100, if not much else. That noted, the Kentuckian Cox doesn’t mess around, and Angel of Empire will be a welcome entry against Forte and National Treasure. He looks to mix it up on the track and on the tote.

First, their pedigrees. Forte’s granddaddy on his paternal side is Medaglia d’Oro, a Travers Stakes winner back in his day who also ran second in the Belmont. Put another way, Forte has the Belmont’s enormous distance back in his DNA, at least, if not ingrained in his own style.

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