Mystik Dan, who was a nose better than returning rival Sierra Leone in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby, will look to pick up his second Triple Crown event in Saturday’s 156th running of the Grade 1, $2 million Belmont Stakes presented by NYRA Bets, at Saratoga Race Course.

Also waiting in the wings, though, will be Grade 1 Preakness Stakes winner Seize the Grey, who gave his 88-year-old Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas his seventh score in the Middle Jewel. And that’s to say nothing of Mindframe, a Constitution colt bidding to be the third Maryland-bred to win the Belmont and first in over 40 years.

The Belmont Stakes is slated as Race 12 on the 14-race card with a post time of 6:41 p.m. Eastern. First post is 10:45 a.m. Admission gates will open to the public at 9 a.m.

Mystik Dan, who, with a start in the Belmont, will have competed in all three races, is 5-1 on the morning line, while Seize the Grey is 8-1. The morning line favorite, at 9-5, is Sierra Leone, beaten a nose in the Derby.

But also right in that mix, and at 7-2 the second choice on the morning line, is the lightly raced Maryland-bred Mindframe.

Repole Stable and St. Elias Stables’ Mindframe, a $600,000 Keeneland September Yearling Sale purchase, is perfect through two starts which he was won by a combined 21 1/4-lengths.

By Constitution, who sired the New York-bred 2020 Belmont Stakes-winner Tiz the Law, Mindframe romped to a 13 3/4-length debut stalk-and-pounce score sprinting seven furlongs on March 30 at Gulfstream Park that garnered a field-best 103 Beyer Speed Figure.

He returned on the Kentucky Derby undercard and made every pole a winning one when stretched out to 1 1/16-miles on good footing where he was ridden out a 7 1/2-length winner over Cornishman.

“He’s been super-impressive in his two races and the way he’s done that and how easily he’s won those races, how fast those races have been – it gives you the confidence he has the talent,” Pletcher said.

The question, of course, is seasoning. Mindframe’s two starts are two fewer than any other runner in the field, and eight fewer than Seize the Grey’s 10; that runner is the most experienced in the field.

“The question mark is if he has the experience and the seasoning,” Pletcher acknowledges. “Obviously, he’s giving up some experience to some really good horses, so that’s the concern. I think, from a talent perspective, he has enough talent to compete with this field, but he doesn’t have the foundation and the experience that most of the ones in here do.”

Bred by R. Larry Johnson, Mindframe is out of the stakes-winning Street Sense mare Walk of Stars, who is a half-sister to multiple graded stakes-placed Strike the Moon. Mindframe will look to become the third Maryland-bred winner following Cloverbrook [1877] and Caveat [1983]. Caveat’s 1983 score followed Deputed Testamony’s upset win in a rain-soaked Preakness that year, giving Maryland-breds two of the three Triple Crown races.

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