If the oddsmakers have the 2025 Belmont Stakes right, it’s going to be hard to build yourself a betting ticket with serious upside. 

That’s just the nature of a race with two heavy favorites at the top of the board. 

No. 7 Journalism (8-5) and No. 2 Sovereignty (2-1) are essentially co-favorites to win the race, and their combined implied probability suggests that one of these horses will win the Belmont Stakes 72 percent of the time.

Unless you’re sitting on a monster vertical ticket like a Pick 6, it will be very hard to nab a big score from this kind of race by just going with the chalk.

With that in mind, let’s highlight a couple of the horses further down the odds that could splash your ticket by hitting the board.

Sovereignty is known as the best closer in this division, but there is another late runner in this race that could also make a push down the stretch.

HIll Road isn’t in the same class as Sovereignty, but if you believe that this race sets up for this style of runner, it makes sense to add Hill Road on your ticket.

Especially since there’s a significant chance that these odds lengthen as we get closer to post-time and the money starts to pile up on the two favorites. 

One of two horses that will be desperate to get out in front right away, Crudo is an intriguing option in exotics but also as a long shot to win the whole race.

Crudo has made just three starts, but is coming off back-to-back wins, most notably his most recent performance at the Sir Barton Stakes.

It was an eye-popper as Crudo wired the field, encouraging his connections to enter him into the Belmont.

Crudo’s best path to success here is to repeat his Sir Barton trip, but that will be pretty tough to accomplish against this class of opponent.

That said, there is a chance we haven’t seen this horse’s best performance, which makes him very intriguing if this price holds.

Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.