It was about ten minutes to post, I was following the stampede of fancy women in fancy hats and less fancy men in sweaty suits. All of us were exiting the Belmont paddock.

Of course, we came to the paddock for nothing other than final inspection of the animals from close range. All sorts of subtle stuff was there in front of us for use in divining the winner.

	Commendable's owners Bob and Beverly Lewis celebrate following Saturday's Belmont Stakes.

The reason for this is that I generally don't spend a good amount of time crunching numbers on Belmont entrants who've won a maiden race and nothing more. I didn't care who owned the colt. But if I ever bumped into the owners I'd suggest they consider race conditions along the lines of "non-winners of anything more than maiden and non-wagering county fair meet events."

But using my cat-quick reflexes, I noticed the boldface on my program. The Lewises did have a runner. He was that runner.

I held my remark out of respect. Good luck, Bob and Beverly. Good luck with your other horses this year. Your colt was so far back in the Derby, he was like one of those last-place finishers in a junior high track meet. You know the kid. He's running his heart out in the home stretch while the assistant PE instructor is setting up the hurdles for the next event.

But anyway, the Lewises probably knew what they were doing. What were they doing? They were blocking my exit from the paddock. I was on my way to bet on one of the legitimate entrants.

I noticed D. Wayne Lukas was involved in the charade. He's supposed to be a smart trainer, or something. And he'd talked Pat Day into taking the pony on a glorified workout.

I guessed they all figured with Fusaichi Pegasus hurt, and Red Bullet resting, it was O.K. for anybody to show up. Maybe they came to enter that fan-friendly Belmont prize drawing. The one in which nobody could find the drums used for collecting entry slips.

Even as I made my bet on one of the real competitors, I glanced back at the Daily Racing Form for another view of Commendable. I wanted assurance that it was Bob and Beverly, D. Wayne and Pat who'd gone mad. It was surely them not me.

Then they ran the silly race.

You'll recall the complaint from non-racing fans about the pace being too slow. They're talking about the pace of the race day, not the damn Belmont, aren't they? But the Belmont animals were crawling.

I was thinking if Hugh Hefner holds, I would concentrate soley on Jai-Alai from here on out.

But my handicapping acumen was proven correct once again. Hef came back to the field. And gave up the lead to Commendable.

We learned later that Commendable threw a shoe in the paddock before the race. So the scene at that time was this: A one-time winner, entered over his head at a mile and a half, in the follow-up to losing by a mile and a half, was additionally beset by the fact his equipment was falling apart.

D. Wayne said afterward that the new shoe set-up didn't make him nervous. "But the blacksmith was sweating," he said. "He was pouring sweat." If I didn't know the result, I'd think that at the time, the blacksmith was sweating less because of some intense pressure regarding the fate of Commendable than because of the fact it was hot.

But now D. Wayne was rolling. We missed the boat on Commendable, he told us. The reason we didn't know better is because, "No one really bothered me this week." That is to say, D. Wayne was a near anonymous figure in the lead-up stories to the Belmont. He was approached by the scribes so infrequently that we never learned the truth the Daily Racing Form couldn't offer us. It was at this point during the post-race stupor that I wondered if the Daily Racing Form might consider statements from the trainers in place of past performance numbers in those cases when the past performance numbers are pathetic.

Lukas also told us before the year is done, we'll all realize this is a strong group of three-year-olds. Strong as opposed to weak, which has been the general consensus.

Is there anyone in much of a position to argue with D. Wayne Lukas at this point? With his Belmont win he moved into a tie for the all-time lead in Triple Crown event victories with "Sunny" Jim Fitzsimmons. 13 each.

Lukas said all he hoped for "was that my colt would run in the afternoon like he'd been running for me in the mornings." Lukas, it should be pointed out, is a powerful enough figure in racing that another option would be that he simply demand the Grade I events for Commendable take place at 6 a.m. Sure, it would cut down on attendance, but everyone has OTB accounts at this point anyway.

On the post-race dash from the winner's enclosure, Beverly Lewis told me that D. Wayne promised her Commendable is a colt who can run all day. "As long as he can run fast all day," she said, "that's good."

I asked her if the lesson for the players is to now look for potential Belmont winners among the pool of horses who've won only a maiden race. "You'll have to ask Bob," she said.

And that was the plan. But hustling to catch up with Mr. Lewis, I was cut off by the forearm of a uniformed NYRA security man who told me, "Let's let Mrs. Lewis through." I thought I could probably out-bench him, even on my limited work-out schedule, but this was no time to be standing up for manhood. And besides, I didn't want to end up in the NYRA court system. My uncle, who's an attorney, was with me at the track, but he wouldn't have come to my aid until the last two betting races were completed. I'd be languishing in a NYRA jail cell, uncle Gordy would be betting five-way trifecta boxes, and my one phone call would be wasted because cellular phone signals are hard to come by when every member of the audience has a cellular phone.

Anyway, I never got to Bob with the follow-up. By the time he was on the press conference podium, I'd forgotten the question anyway.

I'm learning to forget a lot of things when it comes to handicapping.

But I am certain of this. It profits you to keep a keen eye in the paddock area.

For instance, you can find out who is in the race.

People like the Lewises, D. Wayne Lukas and Pat Day. The animal is incidental.