When: Post time is scheduled for 6:37 p.m. Eastern.

How to watch: Race coverage begins at 2 p.m. on NBC Sports Network and will switch to NBC at 4. The coverage will also be streamed on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.

Length: The “Test of Champions” is the longest of the Triple Crown races at 1 1/2 miles.

Odds: Justify, at 4-5, was the overwhelming morning-line favorite in the 10-horse field followed by Hofburg (9-2), Bravazo (8-1) and Vino Rosso (8-1).

Weather: The forecast is favorable for the third leg of the Triple Crown after historically sloppy conditions for both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. The National Weather Service forecast for the area around Elmont, N.Y., called for partly sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 70s. AccuWeather warned of the chance of a thunderstorm, but indicated rain could miss to the southwest.

The favorite:  Justify is a massive specimen, standing 16.3 hands (taller than the famously big 1973 Triple Crown champion Secretariat) and weighing 1,380 pounds, more than 250 above the average thoroughbred. He has an attitude to match, more pushy than regal. And he’s backed it up, standing on the verge of the Triple Crown having shown little sign of strain from a heavy workload — the Belmont will be his sixth race since Feb. 18.

The impressive 3-year-old campaign after not racing at all as a 2-year-old raises the question of whether there is a lesson to be learned from Justify’s atypical start to competition. Will his success herald a trend of more 2-year-olds forgoing races? Or is he an outlier?

Trainer Bob Baffert is open in his admiration for Justify. But the Hall of Famer would also enter the record books with a victory on Saturday: He would become only the second person to train two Triple Crown winners, joining James Fitzsimmons (with Gallant Fox in 1930 and Omaha in 1935); it would also be his 15th victory in a Triple Crown race, moving him past D. Wayne Lukas for most all-time.

“You say ‘Bob’ in the racing industry, and there’s only one Bob,” notes Joe Harper, CEO of Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and a longtime family friend.

Picks and handicapping: Justify is a great story line, but it makes him a terrible betting proposition. Favorites don’t often win the Belmont, and when they do they pay miserly odds. That means we need to get creative in the exotic wagers such as the exacta, trifecta and superfecta to have a chance at a potential windfall.

If you want to wager on an upset winner, there are a few reasons to bet against Justify. For one, 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah was the only Belmont favorite to win in the last 16 years. For another, Justify drew the inside post, where no one has won since Touch Gold in 1997.

Justify won the first leg of the Triple Crown by decisively Good Magic by 2½ lengths with Audible another head behind. “He’s a superior horse,” said Bob Baffert, who joined Ben A. Jones as the trainers to win the race at least five times.

For the first time in 95 years, one sire produced four entrants at one Derby, including Justify. But that horse, Scat Daddy, died unexpectedly at 11 just as his line was being established.

Before Justify, the Run for the Roses had not been won by an entrant who had not raced as a 2-year-old since 1882, a time so long ago in American sporting history that its details sound almost foreign.