SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Poor Da' Tara. He had just won the biggest race of his career, the Belmont Stakes, but he was merely an afterthought, because all anyone wanted to talk about was not who won, but who lost.

As Da' Tara posed for pictures in the Belmont winner's circle on June 7, the media posse left him to chase after Big Brown and his sweat-soaked trainer, Rick Dutrow. It was an understandable reaction, being as Big Brown was going for the Triple Crown, and all Da' Tara had done, up to that point, was win a maiden race.

But when Da' Tara runs on Sunday in the Grade 2, $500,000 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga, it is he who will be the focal point, what with Big Brown tucked away at Aqueduct, awaiting the Grade 1, $1 million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth a week later.

The 1 1/8-mile Jim Dandy will be a critical race for Da' Tara. It will be an opportunity for him to prove that the Belmont was not a fluke, that he merely capitalized when Big Brown chucked it a mile into the 1 1/2-mile race. More significantly, the Jim Dandy could help propel Da' Tara into the mix for champion 3-year-old colt. The Jim Dandy is a prep for the Grade 1, $1 million Travers Stakes on Aug. 23. If Da' Tara sweeps the summer at Saratoga, he would have a heck of a hat trick heading into the fall.

Da' Tara was the second Belmont Stakes winner in four years for trainer Nick Zito, who also stopped the Triple Crown bid of Smarty Jones with Birdstone in 2004. Birdstone came back and won the 1 1/4-mile Travers on a dark and stormy afternoon later that summer, but did not tune up in the Jim Dandy. Da' Tara, with more substance than Birdstone, needs to stay active.

"The Travers is a mile and a quarter," Zito said. "Da' Tara needs to be sharp for the Travers. I want him to win the Jim Dandy, but it's more important that he run a good race. Then the mile and a quarter will be right up his alley."

Da' Tara was slow to come around. Although he was a maiden winner in his third lifetime start, at Gulfstream Park in January, he subsequently was third in a weak first-level allowance race, then finished ninth of 12, some 23 1/2 lengths behind Big Brown, in the Florida Derby.

"When he ran against Big Brown the first time, he certainly was not up to that," Zito said. "But we were running out of options to see if he could make the Derby. I wanted to see if he could compete. He wasn't ready."

That day, though, jockey Joe Bravo told Zito he thought Da' Tara would be fine, but that he needed time to develop. Zito received similar feedback from Larry Melancon after Da' Tara finished fifth in the Derby Trial at Churchill Downs, and from John Velazquez after Da' Tara finished second in the Barbaro Stakes on the Preakness undercard at Pimlico.

That dovetailed with Zito's assessment. A student of pedigrees, Zito believed that Da' Tara, a son of Tiznow, would only get better with age and experience.

"He's a two-time Breeders' Cup Classic winner," Zito said of Tiznow. "I ran Da' Tara in the Belmont because I knew the distance would not be a problem."

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