Just like that, the horseracing world has a legitimate Kentucky Derby frontrunner to pin its hopes to. Now the question is whether Bellamy Road can break the curse of the Derby favorite.

Bellamy Road cruised under the wire like a missile on Saturday, 17 1/2 lengths in front of Survivalist and the field in the 81st running of the 1 1/8 mile, $750,000 Grade I Wood Memorial.

It was Bellamy Road’s first Grade I victory, and his first attempt at stretching out to nine furlongs. He bumped his earnings in graded stakes up to about $570,000, which slides him into the top 10 on that list. In two starts this year – his only two for Nick Zito (he was previously trained by Michael Dickinson) – Bellamy Road has put 33 1/4 lengths between himself and the horses chasing him.

On Saturday, George Steinbrenner’s horse barely looked like he was trying. He certainly didn’t look like a horse breaking Private Terms’s 1988 stakes record by a fifth of a second, nor did he look like he was tying the track record at that distance, set by the excellent Riva Ridge. He looked like a horse out for a breeze. The repercussions are huge.

Bellamy Road will almost certainly be established as the favorite in the May 5 Kentucky Derby. He was morning lined at 20-1 in the third iteration of the Kentucky Derby Future Pool, and when they closed the window last night, punters had pushed those odds all the way to 3-1, making him the clear favorite. The best of Zito’s four other contenders, Sun King, is still drawing a little action, but his spot as second favorite on that list has him at 10-1.

Bellamy’s victory in the Wood was the kind of race – a full-on, blow-the-doors-off, knockout – that inspires confidence. It was the kind of race that sends a horse to Kentucky with all eyes on him. When we get down to Louisville, it’s going to be as if Bellamy Road were the great Eclipse: “Bellamy Road in front, the rest, nowhere.”

But being the favorite in the Derby is far from a cinch. Fusaichi Pegasus was the last favorite to win, in 2000; since then, favorites Point Given, Harlan’s Holiday, Empire Maker, and The Cliff’s Edge have all lost. The streak that Fusaichi Pegasus broke stretched back to Spectacular Bid, in 1979. The last record holder in the Wood, Private Terms, knocked them out at Aqueduct in 1988, and headed to Kentucky looking like a dead cert. He was the chalk, and he came in ninth.

Of course, it’s not a real curse – fate isn’t stacked against the favorite – and the troubles of the Derby favorites don’t have fans chanting “1918” or some such year in Churchill Downs. But it’s no cinch for a 3-year-old horse who hasn’t raced in a month to suit up at Churchill, make it all the way around the track, and end the race.

This might be a little harder to do for a horse that 19 other riders are gunning for, the one they’ve watched and studied. It’s suddenly pretty difficult to get a good trip, get some space, or break out alone. In the case of the favorite, every owner and trainer at the place said: “If he goes, you go.”

But can they go with Bellamy? I don’t think so. It’s a strong field of speedy horses; he’s not going to have it to himself out there in front, but can anyone running make up 17 1/2 lengths?

He won’t be afraid of the pace, even if it’s crowded – his first four furlongs of the Wood averaged only 11 1/2 seconds, and he was still running just a click above 12 closing out his eighth furlong. His last was 12.75, and that was with jockey Javier Castellano waving his hands around in celebration.

This Derby is going to be full of pace: All of the winning 3-year-olds like the front, but they can’t all have it. If Bellamy Road is sharp enough to avoid the first-turn train wreck, who is going to catch him?

It’s a bit of conventional wisdom that you don’t win the Derby with only two races in a horse. People want to see four races and a couple of stakes wins leading up to the first weekend in May. But Bellamy Road didn’t look green on Saturday. Besides, with 33 1/4 lengths of victory to spread around, he can match what most horses take at least four races to rack up.