By all accounts Belmont Stakes favorite California Chrome is ready to go as he attempts to make history with a victory in Saturday’s race to claim the Triple Crown. He’s acclimated well in his first look at Belmont but assistant trainer Alan Sherman admits that he was intimidated by the sheer size of the track.

The track at Belmont is one of the largest in the country, befitting the longest leg of the Triple Crown. The Belmont Stakes will be run over a mile and a half on the dirt track at Belmont Park and Alan Sherman said that it took him some time to get used to the sheer scope of the racing facility. Sherman says the huge track was ‘a little intimidating at first’ but that he’s ‘getting used to it’. He concedes that California Chrome adjusted to his surroundings much better than he did.

Sherman was taken by the ‘sheer size’ of the Belmont Park track. The first time he walked out on the track he marveled at its size noting that ‘the horse looks like an ant out there’. Asked about the difficulty of preparing for the Belmont Stakes, let alone with all of the hype and pressure surrounding California Chrome’s Triple Crown bid Sherman mused that ‘they’re all tough races’ before adding that he thinks ‘this will be the toughest of them all’.

California Chrome was made a 3/5 morning line betting favorite for Saturday’s race. He’ll start from gate #2 which might not be ‘best case scenario’ but doesn’t seem to concern his connections that much. California Chrome was dominant in his Kentucky Derby and Preakness victories but making the transition to the 1 1/2 mile long Belmont is never easy. California Chrome is attempting to become only the 12th Triple Crown winner in horse racing history and the first since Affirmed did it in 1978.

The Belmont Stakes will take place on Saturday afternoon from New York’s Belmont Park. It’ll be broadcast on NBC in the United States with over 100,000 spectators watching live and millions watching around the world. It’s not an overstatement to suggest that this is the biggest horse racing event of the past decade.