Yesterday morning the lots were drawn and the post positions assigned for the 139th running of the 1.5 mile, $1 million Belmont Stakes — the third jewel of the Triple Crown, the high point of Belmont’s spring and summer season, and the most difficult and challenging race any 3-year-old will ever run.

I’ve written more than once this year that post-position is the most overrated variable in horse racing. It’s the horse in the gate, not the gate. If your pony can overcome then you’re going to win the race from wherever in the gate you start. This is especially true in Grade 1 Stakes races, where the talent is deep. In the Belmont Stakes, this is doubly true.

We say all the time that Belmont Park is big. It’s not just big — it’s monstrous, huge, and out of scale with everything these horses have ever done.

Despite all the “horses for courses” theories about the individual biases of various tracks in the nation, and despite the obvious leanings this way or that, which are found among our hallowed ovals, the truth of the matter is that most of the racetracks in America are virtually identical.

Pimlico and Churchill Downs, no matter what anyone says, are the same. Both infields are a little over 800 feet across, both are about 2,300 feet long. There’s a moment where the Churchill turns widen up, and Pimlico’s stay closer to 65 feet wide. But that’s about it.

Belmont is another animal altogether. Run around Churchill Downs (and most of the tracks in the country) once and you will have run one mile. Run around Belmont, and you’ll run a mile and a half. From apex to apex, the track is more than 3,300 feet — another 1,000 feet. The infield is more than 1,200 feet across, half again wider than the other two Triple Crown tracks. The backstretch is more than five hundred feet longer than the backstretch at Churchill downs. That’s almost a furlong. The finish line is very far down the track, as well, so the stretch run can seem interminable.

This isn’t about funny hats and juleps. This is the Test of Champions.

Winning the Belmont takes stamina and tractability. The horse must be able to run for a mile and a half and keep its wits about the whole way round.

We’ve got the seven horses, and the question is: Who fits that bill?

There’s a lot of evidence that it’s the most interesting addition to the race, Rags to Riches, the filly racing out of Todd Pletcher’s barn and winner of the Kentucky Oaks (and her three starts before that).

Rags to Riches adds much needed spice to this field of seven, but she’s not just a novelty, she’s a supremely qualified and gifted horse.
Her sire, A.P. Indy, won the 1992 Belmont, and what a wonderful race that was. A.P. Indy was saving ground, letting the leaders burn one another out on the front, and then made his move to duel down the stretch with Pine Bluff and then take it in the last strides. A.P. Indy’s sire was Seattle Slew, the 10th winner of the Triple Crown. He rebuffed challengers in the 1977 Belmont Stakes to take the race wire to wire and opened up daylight the stretch — in the mud. Rags to Riches is also related to Jazil, winner of the 2006 Belmont Stakes. Genetically, Rags to Riches is prepared for this race in a way that no other horse in the gate is. This distance is in her blood.

The last filly in the race was Silverbulletday in 1999. She was a brilliant horse: 11 wins in 12 career starts. Jerry Bailey was in the irons and took her to the lead where she dueled with Charismatic. She gave up at the top of the stretch and faded to seventh.

Only 21 fillies have entered the Belmont, and only two have won. Ruthless won the first Belmont. Tanya took the race in 1905. Genuine Risk took the place money in 1980, she’d also finished second in the Preakness and won the Kentucky Derby that year.

Can Rags to Riches keep her head? Well, it’s hard to run against colts.

But here’s where her post-position might help her. She’s racing from the outside, which means she won’t have to stand in the gate wondering why all these colts are in there with her. If we believe that fillies react differently to colts than other fillies, this will lessen the amount of time she has to consider her situation.

What’s most interesting about her presence here is how thoroughly professional she is. The 3-year-old colts have been wonderful, but you can’t exactly call them predictable. They don’t seem, as a group, to run as if they understand what’s expected of them. Obviously, the defected Street Sense was a less than predictable runner in these races. Curlin figured out that he was in the Preakness after three quarters of the race had gone by. Hard Spun (or perhaps Mario Pino) allowed himself to be pressured into starting his run too early in Baltimore. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to Rags to Riches.

She goes into the gate. She runs her race. She wins.

Her race, moreover, is perfect. She rates off the pace, just like her father did, and makes her move on the stretch. She has yet to be asked — each of her victories were won with Garret Gomez hand urging her across the wire. And that hand urging her moved her in front of the Kentucky Oaks, having completed the 1 1/8 mile in 1:49 4/5. The last time Curlin ran 1 1/8, he was blowing them out of the water in the Arkansas Derby, back on April 14. His time for that race was 1:50.

She’s fresh, she’s carrying five pounds less than the boys, and she’s a force to be reckoned with.

mwatman@nysun.com