IT is shaping up into a good year – if a strange year – in racing in North America, where the Kentucky Derby (September 5th) and Preakness Stakes (October 3rd) have still not been run, but the traditional final leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, took place over two months ago!

The winner of the Belmont, Tiz The Law, is now odds-on for the Kentucky Derby, having added the recent Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga to his earlier wins in fine style by an easy five and a half lengths.

The only thing that tempers enthusiasm slightly is that he might not have beaten much in the end, but it came in a good time and I now have him clear in the division on 125.

Tiz The Law seems a really straightforward individual, as well as an extremely classy one, and he is likely to continue to prove very difficult to beat.

More talented

Gamine is a rather different model – having run just four times (and won four times but tested positive for one of them) at between six and a half furlongs and eight and a half furlongs – but is possibly even more talented.

Her win in the Grade 1 Test Stakes on the same Saratoga card came by seven lengths from 115-rated Venetian Harbor and in an overall time 0.80s quicker than the good four-year-old filly Serengeti Empress in the Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes earlier on the card.

I have Gamine on 121 here, but her ridiculously easy (and fast) Acorn Stakes win at Belmont in June means she remains on 128 and has claims to be the best mare or filly in the world, never mind in North America.

Next race for Gamine should be the Kentucky Oaks, the day before the Derby, in which the longer trip may be a bigger threat to her than her opposition, for all that Swiss Skydiver (117 rating) threw down a gauntlet by winning the 10-furlong Alabama Stakes at Saratoga a week later in most convincing style.