2020 Belmont Stakes Results: Tiz The Law Lays Down A Classic Stretch Run To Take The Win, Dr. Post Places, Max Player Shows

Marked though it was by an unimaginable position in the racing season, the 2020 Belmont Stakes nevertheless brought racing, and athletics the United States, a measure of old-school reality with the assured performance of its heavy favorite, Tiz The Law, who realized nearly every expectation and and took the lion’s share of the feature’s sharply-reduced $1 million purse. The Barclay Tagg-trained Tiz The Law went off at a respectably low 4-5 and paid $3.60. Dr. Post, trained by Todd Pletcher, held gamely on to place, and paid $5.80, followed by the spirited stretch-runner Max Player, who came on strong in the last eighth of a mile, and who paid $5.60. The NYRA’s trifecta paid $47.75.

Highly-touted son of Tapit and the track’s second-favorite at post time, Tap It To Win, just plain wore himself out in the lead for much of the race, fading wholly in the stretch and placing a disappointing fifth for his connections and for the players who had been banking on the vaunted Tapit pedigree. Likewise, last week’s morning-line second-favorite, Sole Volante, simply could not really muster a performance that mattered, finishing sixth.

At nine furlongs, the historically abbreviated one-turn Belmont was started from the chute feeding into the backstretch. From his outside No.8 post, Tiz The Law broke well in the chute and set himself comfortably where he, his trainer Barclay Tagg, and his jockey Manny Franco wanted him to be, namely, laying third and fourth just off the pace up the backstretch. Tap It To Win mastered the early lead and kept with it, maintaining form into the far turn until Tiz The Law powered up next to him from the outside.

Tiz The Law’s stretch run was a beautiful example of a strong horse with a lot left in the tank as he pulled away from the pack, decisively increasing his lead with every stride. But it was the eventual show horse Max Player’s stretch performance that was the more notable, as he moved outside and zoomed past Pneumatic, who had been holding on to third. There wasn’t a lot of race left in the nine furlongs at that point, the wire was upon them. But Max Player was still gaining on Dr. Post when they crossed it. Had the Belmont been run at a Kentucky Derby length of a mile-and-a-quarter, Max Player, whom our own Bluegrass Wise Man has been touting for the last two weeks, would have placed rather than showed.

The good news to take from that is that Tiz The Law’s dominant performance can be challenged at lengths longer than a mile-and-an-eighth. Had the race been at an ordinary Belmont length of a mile-and-a-half, Tiz The Law and Mr. Franco would have been given something else to think about at the wire.