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It wouldn't be Belmont Stakes weekend without Gio Ponti, or so it has seemed the past several years. The multiple champion turf male will oblige his loyal fans with his presence for a third consecutive year in Saturday's Grade 1, $400,000 Manhattan Handicap, a 1 1/4-mile inner turf heat which precedes the classic Belmont Stakes on a 13-race program.

Gio Ponti, who as a three-year-old won the Grade 3 Hill Prince Stakes on Belmont eve 2008, took the 2009 Manhattan en route championships in the turf male and older male categories. However, he met a reversal in last year's renewal after being forced to steady while making an inside rally. His stablemate, Winchester, got a clear run on the far outside and beat Gio Ponti by a half-length. Despite winning only two of seven starts last season, Gio Ponti repeated as the nation's grass champ when the Eclipse Awards were handed out in January.

Like last year, Gio Ponti enters the Manhattan following a narrow loss in the Dubai World Cup (Group 1) in late March. Fifth by 1 3/4 lengths in that 1 1/4-mile test on Tapeta, the six-year-old appears poised for another championship-quality run under regular pilot Ramon Dominguez.

Viscount Nelson makes his second appearance in the U.S. for his Coolmore connections and trainer Aidan O'Brien. Up the track in the 2009 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita, Viscount Nelson was winless in a five-race European campaign last year, though he did place in the Eclipse (Group 1) and Irish Two Thousand Guineas (Group 1). Unplaced in the Gordon Richards Stakes (Group 3) to kick off 2011, Viscount Nelson enters off an odds-on score in the Silver S. at The Curragh last Friday.

Prince Will I Am who landed the Grade 1 Jamaica Handicap over this course last fall, later added the W.L. McKnight H. (Grade 2) and Mac Diarmida Stakes (Grade 2), but has met reversals in his last two including a fifth in the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic. Finishing eighth in the latter was Al Khali, winner last fall of the Grade 2 Bowling Green Handicap over Belmont's inner turf.

There appears to be plenty of pace in the Manhattan, all expected to be provided by New York-breds. Straight Story has never finished worse than second in eight tries on either of Belmont's two turf courses, most recently turning in a gutsy wire-to-wire score in the May 7 Fort Marcy (Grade 3). Mission Approved gave Gio Ponti a brief scare at 55-1 in the Man o' War Stakes (Grade 1) last July when missing by a neck, but the seven-year-old veteran has not raced since. Former claimer Wishful Tomcat also has early foot but looks up against it from a class perspective.

Canadian Grade 2 winner Winward Islands could move forward in his second start of the year. He finished third in the Grade 2 Elkhorn Stakes at Keeneland in his seasonal bow on April 29. The same could also be said of Grade 3 veteran Bold Hawk, who ran fifth in the Three Coins Up S. on May 22. Bim Bam, third in the Dixie Stakes (Grade 2) most recently, is another who is at a class disadvantage.

Team Valor International, who will be represented by Animal Kingdom in the Belmont Stakes, has a legitimate chance to reach the winner's circle in the $400,000 Just a Game (Grade 1) for fillies and mares at a mile on the Widener turf. The former South African mainstay Gypsy's Warning, who last fall won the Grade 1 Matriarch, seeks to rebound from a sub-par seventh in the Jenny Wiley Stakes (Grade 2) on April 16.

Aviate won the Churchill Distaff Turf Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard by making up 10 lengths in the final half-mile, and again has Kent Desormeaux in the irons for trainer Bill Mott. The third-place finisher in that race, Fantasia, still seeks her first graded score since her importation from Europe. She ran fifth in the Just a Game last year.

The Just a Game has also attracted Grade 3 winners Cherokee Queen, Strike the Bell, C. S. Silk and Justaroundmidnight. Taking a stab at turf for the first time is multiple Grade 2 winner Amen Hallelujah, most recently third in the Humana Distaff (Grade 1), while Much Rejoicing, a daughter of 1999 champion turf mare Soaring Softly, steps up in class after taking the six-furlong Glia Stakes in her turf debut.

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