The favored three-year-olds for the $1.5 million 2021 Belmont Stakes were all out for their maintenance gallops on Friday morning, with Essential Quality’s trainer Brad Cox dispatching the lead favorite on a standard 1 3/8-mile gallop, followed by Michael McCarthy sending Preakness Winner and second-favorite Rombauer out for the same. Both horses were paced on the training track. Getting in their gallops under Todd Pletcher’s direction, Known Agenda, Bourbonic, and the very lightly raced Overtook hit the training track as well. Working on the main track, by contrast, was Rock Your World, whom trainer John Sadler assigned a full mile-and-a-half gallop.

By the Belmont Stakes race day in any Triple Crown season, we may think we know the crop of three-year-olds a bit better, but it’s arguable that the Bob Baffert-induced travails with the very-likely-to-be-disqualified Medina Spirit threw the scales of the season off, particularly since the horse did race — demonstrably clean — in the Preakness. Essential Quality’s performance in the Derby, considered a good one despite his rocky start, has come into focus precisely for this reason. But there are others whose Derby trips were equally unproductive, who will be gunning hard for Essential Quality’s presumed status at the top of the pecking order in this short field of eight.

Rock Your World is one such outlier. We’ll bring in the Bluegrass Wise Man ™ to tell us what he thinks of Rock Your World’s, Rombauer’s, and Hot Rod Charlie’s chances to best Essential Quality in a moment, but first, a refresher on the odds, which we’ll update as the Belmont windows open and the money starts to etch the live odds, which we’ll update here until post time. Post time for the Belmont Stakes is 6:49 p.m in New York.

(Post Position, Horse, Live Odds, (Morning Line))

1. Bourbonic, 9-1, (15-1)

2. Essential Quality, 2-1, (2-1)

3. Rombauer, 7-1, (3-1)

4. Hot Rod Charlie, 7-2, (7-2)

5. France Go De Ina, 18-1, (30-1)

6.Known Agenda, 9-2, (6-1)

7.Rock Your World, 4-1, (9-2)

8. Overtook, 13-1, (20-1)

(Source: NYRA, 5/6/2021, Updated: 6:05 p.m. EDT)

With no further ado, here’s the Bluegrass Wise Man ™.

It’s race day, so in the spirit of taking the gloves off, let’s drill down on some of the horses gunning for Essential Quality. Take Hot Rod Charlie first, whom we’ve both liked.

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: Got to be taken seriously. I think you have to ask why did Flavian Prat, who won the Preakness on Rombauer, book a ride in the Belmont on Hot Rod Charlie. Or why his agent did it. Looking at Hot Rod Charlie, you know, didn’t race in the Preakness, did fine in the Derby, beat Essential Quality. I think Prat and Doug O’Neill think that that horse is ready. I’m not quite that convinced, but I can’t ignore him, and I won’t in my exotics.

Next up, Rombauer. Can it be that everybody’s a little too high on him?

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: He didn’t do the Derby, so we don’t have that gauge, but he obviously ran a fine Preakness. He’s got the distance, I think, but I think what you see when you look back in April is that he ran third to Essential Quality in the Blue Grass out here in Kentucky. I think that’s an important race to look at for him. He always shows up, he’s there, and he won the Preakness, is the feeling. He’s the second-favorite for that reason, but to me, Rombauer just doesn’t seem like a Belmont kind of slugger. You hafta be a bit of a slugger for this race.

Meaning?

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: Roll with it. Take the adversity, the distance, the big turns, whatever this big-ass track and its field are throwing at you, and get down and grind. Eat. The. Race. Like Secretariat did, you know? That kind of a slugger. Rombauer’s not that. Not a lot of ‘em are.

Who’s next on the list to take down Essential Quality.

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: Essential Quality himself? Kidding, but sorta not.

You mean he could kinda let the pace get away from him early and then have the track take him out.

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: Correct. He could also not do that, and keep his head, and all that. It’s like, the Derby’s got its own mind game on the three-year-olds, what with all the flare and the size of the field and the fact that some of them are seeing each other for the first time. Coming when it does, the Belmont is a sort of deeper mind game for them. Part of it is the distance, of course, but the other part is the length of the battle. It’s just a really long, hard fight. Not a lotta horses actually like the sandy track here. None of them have ever done a race this tough in a place this tough, and after this race, none of ‘em ever will.

Known Agenda?

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: Legit. As we note, bit higher in the odds than Hot Rod Charlie, but again, has to be taken seriously. I’ll use him. I think today I’m gonna leave out Rombauer. Funny, right, leaving out a Preakness winner. But I think this is the year to do it. Anyway, I think the thing to think about with Known Agenda is that he doesn’t have Irad Ortiz, who as you know, took a spill. He’s fine, but he’s not racing today, and it’s thrown off a lotta people who were counting on him to ride. I mean, it’s Irad, right? So I’d say what would give me some stress is knowing that Known Agenda is going into the Belmont without Irad, who has been with him for his last three races. Not having Irad is a big difference for Known Agenda.

Bear down on Rock Your World.

Bluegrass Wise Man ™: It’s race day, so no time to beat around the bush. I think Rock Your World is the winner. Obviously, to back him you have to throw out the Derby, which is, again, a funny thing to do, but he got a terrible break, and what I hear is that Joel (Rosario) lost the iron because the stalls in that new gate at Churchill that they ordered so they wouldn’t hafta have the auxiliary gate are just a little narrower. So if you break kinda sideways outta there like Rock Your World did, and the jockey’s on his toes anyway in that iron, then it brushes the side of the chute and it’s gone. I don’t think that’s gonna happen today. Rock Your World wanted to run and seemed like he was about to run big. This is just his third start on dirt, so he may even wind up back as a turf horse. But he’s had five weeks off since the Derby, and I don’t think the Derby broke his mind. He’s my pick because he’s looks good, been training well, and I think he’s ready to pop. He’s got something big left in him.