Handicapping is relatively easy when a race pits known commodities, horses like Funny Cide and Empire Maker. One may have a good day, one may not. One may have a perfect trip, one may suffer from a bad ride. But in these two, there's little mystery. They are two outstanding horses and obviously have the quality to win the Belmont Stakes.

But Saturday's race actually presents a fascinating handicapping puzzle. That's because of Dynever. He could be an overrated horse who has beaten inferior competition, a brilliant animal who is about to prove how gifted he is or something in between. It's very hard to tell, a mystery that has spiced up the race from a handicapping standpoint.

Hardly anyone was paying attention when Dynever made his debut Feb. 8 at Gulfstream Park as a 22-1 shot among the nine horses entered. Even after he closed well in the stretch to finish second, it was nearly impossible to project that his future would include a start in the Belmont Stakes as one of the top threats to a Triple Crown bid. At best, he appeared to be a nice grass prospect for a trainer who had been stereotyped as a turf specialist.

But trainer Christophe Clement had other ideas and began to plot a careful course toward the Belmont, which would include starts in the Aventura and the Lone Star Derby before he entered the Triple Crown picture. But first he convinced longtime client Peter Karches to buy a half interest in the horse from owner-breeder Catherine Willis. He told him the horse would make the Belmont, a bold prediction for a horse who had started once and had not even broken his maiden.

"I wasn't skeptical; it was just the opposite," Karches said. "Christophe is very low-key. I've been with him for seven years and we've had a lot of horses together. He never gets overly excited about a horse. When he got this excited about this horse, I knew he had to be something special."

Clement's plan has worked to perfection, something that rarely happens in racing. The horse broke his maiden in his second start and followed that with wins in the Aventura at Gulfstream and the Lone Star Derby at Lone Star Park.

"The fact that he has been winning has not been a surprise," Clement said. "I don't want to sound pretentious about this, but I believed he was good enough to do what he has done so far. We feel he is ready to take the next step. I don't know if he is good enough, but we will find out."

In most cases, few would have gotten excited over a horse winning the Lone Star Derby. It is a Grade III race that largely draws horses who are not good enough to compete in the Kentucky Derby or Preakness. Dynever was 1-5 against a very weak group of competitors. But it was the manner in which he won the race that has so many people wondering just how good he may be.

At the top of the stretch, jockey Edgar Prado had him hopelessly blocked behind a wall of horses and there didn't seem to be any way out.

"I was ready to shoot Edgar," Clement said jokingly.

At last, a hole opened near the eighth-pole and Dynever delivered an explosive burst of acceleration that was nothing less than special. He shot past five horses and won by 1 1/2 lengths.

"In a matter of strides, he went from sixth to be on the lead," Clement said. "That was pretty impressive."

But once the speed figure gurus started to play around with the final time, a shadow of doubt was cast on Dynever's performance. He was given a 98 Beyer figure, which isn't good enough to be so much as competitive with horse's like Funny Cide and Empire Maker. Funny Cide's best number is a 114 and Empire Maker has run a 111.

Surely, the speed figure experts would give him no chance when he ran against top class company. Not so. None other than Andy Beyer is picking him.

"The impressive horse with the low figures is traditionally a sucker bet and maybe I should have learned my lesson with Arazi and a hundred others like him," Beyer said. "My feeling is that when you see a horse who you know has a terrific amount of quality and has yet to run a good figure it is inevitable that they will get around to running one. Alysheba is a good example. He always showed more ability than was reflected in his figures, but later in life ran a 122.

"Dynever has run an eighth of a mile or less in all his races. If he doesn't have a big figure in his future I will be shocked. Everything he has done has been eye-catching. But I've been fooled before by horses like him. It will be interesting to see."

So, he has beaten nobody, has slow figures, is running against two very good horses and is trained by a guy who only seems to win important grass races. Then again, he has been so visually impressive that he may not have come close to reaching his potential. No one ever said this was an easy game.