California horses in the Belmont
 

Since 1982, I can only see four California based winners: American Pharoah, Point Given, Touch Gold and AP Indy. Quite a few money burners and beaten favorites. I've heard several theories on this; one was the winners almost always had at least two works over the Belmont track, and the New York trainers make the race a bigger priority. If a Chad Brown or Pletcher win a Maiden route race in the fall or winter, they may consider that horse their "Belmont horse". Other than possibly Baffert with Point Given, don't think I've ever heard a California based trainer say they had a "Belmont horse".

I will pass on Exaggerator at 7/5.

I'll use Exaggerator in some of the numbers but you're assumptions are good ones. I'll take even one step further, the recent history of THIS race, The Belmont Stakes, has been the most erratic of all three races. Look at them all my friends, only a fool would not!

Ky Derby and Preakness: only a half-furlong apart in distance and both contested on mile ovals that have shorter/tighter turns than most mile tracks.

Belmont Stakes: significantly longer distance, contested on a mile-and-a-half oval with sweeping turns that are three furlongs in distance. Different ball game.

I'm not impugning your deicision on Exaggerator, as I will pass on him too, but the post is a bit misleading. Off top of my head, Silver Charm just missed, Real Quiet famously lost by a nostril, Paynter (Baffert's 3rd string that year) led into deep stretch and would probably have won if not for a lost shoe, I'll Have Another scratched before the race. Sure I'm missing others.

Yep. Horses with sustained runs do well in the Belmont.

The past winners list just reads like a bunch of what I call "grinders". Front end, stalker, mid-pack, closer, deep closer? Doesn't matter. Need a horse that wants to keep running.

This is exactly why Lani is so perplexing to me because he fits so many angles in the Belmont for me, but I just can't wrap my mind around him actually winning for some reason.

And none of those horses won, and they were all heavily bet. And there's a lot more failures than just the above mentioned horses. The few that have managed to win were all heavily bet.

I just don't think the West Coast horseman make the Belmont a priority, unless they've won the first two TC legs.