Can I'll Have Another Win the Belmont? It is in years like this one, with a Triple Crown on the line, that the Belmont Stakes truly lives up to its august nickname, the Test of the Champion. In more than a century of American horse racing, only 11 horses have passed this singular exam to earn their place among the sport's immortals. The last was Affirmed in 1978. In the 34 years since, 11 others have arrived here at the doorstep of history, only to come up short. On Saturday, in the 144th running of the Belmont, I'll Have Another will try to outrun the legacies of Big Brown, Smarty Jones and nine others and into the pantheon inhabited by Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Count Fleet. Is I'll Have Another good enough to snap the Triple Crown drought and return the spotlight to a tarnished old sport desperate for a little polish? Horse racing is built on a scaffolding of opinion. Betting is how those opinions are expressed, and the odds weigh how strongly they are held. I'll Have Another was installed as the 4-5 favorite to beat 11 rivals in the morning line Wednesday, indicating that sentiment is on the side of the colt's delivering a golden moment to horse racing. I'll Have Another and his heretofore no-name jockey Mario Gutierrez have plenty of folks rooting for them, including Steve Cauthen, the rider of Affirmed. In 1978, the 18-year-old Cauthen was known as the Kid, and he displayed a supernatural serenity guiding Affirmed through stirring Triple Crown battles with his rival Alydar. In Gutierrez, 25, Cauthen recognizes a kindred spirit who fits I'll Have Another perfectly and is in the same zone he inhabited more than 30 years ago. "I've been very impressed with his demeanor, his attitude, the way he couldn't have ridden the horse any better in both the Derby and the Preakness, and I see no reason why that won't continue," Cauthen said. I'm rooting for him 100 percent, and that still won't mean that they can pull it off. But I'm thinking that they've got a great chance, and I hope it works out. A hard look at I'll Have Another's pedigree and performance offers some promise but no incontrovertible proof that the colt is head and shoulders above the other horses in the Belmont field. By racehorse standards, I'll Have Another was purchased on the cheap, for $35,000 last April at a 2-year-old sale in Florida. There was a reason. His sire, Flower Alley, was a good racehorse, winning four graded stakes in 14 starts, including the mile-and-a-quarter Travers Stakes, but he got off to a slow start as a sire. His mother, Arch's Gal Edith, and I'll Have Another's extended female line have not distinguished themselves as mares of quality runners. "Bluntly put, his pedigree is undistinguished," said Eddie Rosen, a pedigree consultant who has picked out such successful racehorses and sires as Tale of the Cat and More Than Ready. Until I'll Have Another appeared, there had not been a stakes winner produced by his first three dams. Flower Alley, to date, has sired only five other stakes winners. The Belmont's grueling mile-and-a-half distance has been the undoing of the past 11 Triple Crown challengers. This is in part because after running two peak efforts in the previous five weeks, the horses are asked to run a marathon distance they never have run, or will run again. Nor, said Rosen, have American racehorses been bred to go that far. "American breeding has emphasized speed rather than stamina," he said. The overwhelming majority of races are contested at one mile and an eighth or less. But I'll Have Another has a better pedigree for stamina than many of his contemporaries. Flower Alley handled a mile and a quarter in the Travers, and was second at the same distance in the Breeders" Cup Classic. I'll Have Another's female line is rich in stamina by virtue of such stayers as Arch, Pleasant Tap and Caucasus. On the racetrack, I'll Have Another has done little wrong in seven career races. He has won all four of his races this year, including three Grade I's against the best of those his age in the Santa Anita Derby, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. In each of those three efforts, he demonstrated a grittiness reminiscent of Affirmed, running within himself until being put down in the stretch to blow by his rivals in the final strides. "He likes running at a target," said Mike Pegram, whose colt Real Quiet fell a nostril short of sweeping the Triple Crown races in 1998. He has a big heart and absolutely won't let a horse stay ahead of him. It's a thrilling running style, but is I'll Have Another nursing his speed or just barely catching inferior opponents?