For horseplayers and race fans, Spring merges into Summer in the days following the Belmont Stakes. There’s lots of good racing left at Belmont every Wednesday through Sunday, and some explosive stakes races are scheduled for the weekend of July 4th (the Dwyer & the Mother Goose), as well as the July 22nd Coaching Club American Oaks. In reality, it’s still ages before we pack up our kits and head north for Saratoga. But we can see the summer races taking shape – the 3-year-old colts have shaken themselves out.

The Triple Crown Trail is much like a long weekend that starts with the run for the roses on the first Saturday in May and ends the Sunday after Belmont. Monday is in our sights. I can practically see the ceiling fans of Saratoga spinning over my head.

Not that it’s all said and done. Discreet Cat came over from Dubai and is waiting in the wings for the summer races; Preakness winner Bernardini will be back; we’ll also hear more from some of the defectors. But Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, won by Kiaran McLaughlin’s Jazil at 6-1 odds, did a lot to form the shape of things to come and tell us how we’re going to spend our summer, or at least our summer gambling dollars.

Pre-Belmont favorite Bluegrass Cat has established himself as the real thing, with place finishes in both the Derby and the Belmont Stakes. Bob and John looks like less of a horse than we expected him to be (although that impression may be the fault of Bob Baffert and his good natured jibe after the race regarding how he figured his only chance was to steal the race on the front). And Jazil certainly came into his own with an impressive win over the mile and a half at Belmont.

Perhaps the most fulfilling developments regards 18-year-old Fernando Jara, who cooly and expertly piloted Jazil to a cruising 1 1/4-length victory in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont to become one of the youngest jockeys to ever win the Triple Crown’s final leg. Looking back, only Steve Cauthen can claim to have won the race – and the Triple Crown, for that matter – at 18, aboard Affirmed in 1978. That’s very good company. It’s a hard race to ride – jockeys blow it every year, if for no other reason than it’s so long, so hard to clock in your head when to make your move. But Jara, who had made his Triple Crown debut running in Kentucky this year, ran it as if he’d been there a dozen times – and that after a mishap at the start that might have thrown even the most experienced jockey.

As the horses broke from the gate on Saturday, Jara’s foot came out of the stirrup and Jazil hit the gate. but the young Panamanian kept his head and his balance and got the horse under control. Jazil is consistently referred to as a late closer, and certainly the horse needs a moment to find his stride and get his race underway, but a look at the official chart for the 138th Belmont Stakes shows that one mile into the race, Jazil had already moved up to seventh from last. The pack was running very tight, and seventh at that point in the race was about 2 1/2 lengths off the lead. Five-sixteenths of a mile out from the wire, he put a head in front. This was no late charge. This was a calculated move.

From the moment Jazil got his stride, which must have been delayed by hitting the gate and Jara losing his iron, the young jock was working the horse into striking position. He split horses on the turn to get through, then pushed out to the middle of the stretch to gun it and open up on the tenacious (but clearly second-best) Bluegrass Cat. It was a that portended greatness.

Legendary jockey Pat Day once said that his “single biggest victory was the very first [Breeder’s Cup] Classic on Wild Again. That did more for my career than any other race.”

That’s how it is – there’s a turning point. On Saturday we witnessed what 297 907 420 918could be the biggest victory in a long and prosperous life of riding horses. Jara, who was still an apprentice jockey in 2004, just made a career for himself.

And just in time. This year has seen the retirement of three of the sport’s greats – Jerry Bailey, Gary Stevens, and Day. It’s been odd not seeing them standing on the scale, not hearing their names among the jeers of the rail birds, and not having the handicapping angle that three well known, experienced jockeys offer. There’s a void, and Jara is going to fill it. No doubt it will be some time before he’s a known quantity, before we can predict what he’ll do with a horse, but he rode brilliantly on Saturday.

That said, lets get down to brass tacks. Those of you who have followed our Triple Crown coverage in the New York Sun know that I, having been inspired by a resounding ticket cashed by the young daughter of a friend at last year’s Kentucky Derby, entered into a handicapping contest with a 4-year-old girl, my neighbor Raina. The idea was to check out what kind of mojo little kids have with these things and prove that Handicappers are not like abstract expressionists.

I am proud – disgusted with myself, but proud – to announce that I trounced her. I also feel obliged to mention that if you’d taken Raina’s bets across the board in each of the triple crown races, she’d have made you $61.60 on $54.00 worth of betting, which is better than even, after all (I’d have earned you $82.30). But those of you who followed Raina’s picks and placed $5 straight bets – win, place, and show – along with her found yourselves $33.25 in the hole. Meanwhile, you fat cats who took my advice are swimming in a 50-cent surplus. Take that, Raina!

mwatman@nysun.com