It often pays to forgive a horse one bad race. That was certainly true in the Kentucky Derby, when Bluegrass Cat, after throwing in a clinker in the Blue Grass Stakes, rebounded to complete the $587 exacta at 30-1.

It could be true again in Saturday’s 138th Belmont Stakes if Bob and John, 17th in the Derby after what trainer Bob Baffert calls “a horrendous trip,” returns to his previous form. The son of Seeking the Gold won three of his four starts before the Derby, including the Wood Memorial, which makes him the only Grade 1 winner in a field of 12 lining up for the mile-and-ahalf “Test of the Champion.” “He’s the kind of horse that has to have a clear path, but he never got a chance to run in the Derby,” said Baffert, who held Bob and John out of the Preakness to await the Belmont. “He could have run back in two weeks, but he’s a late foal (May 17) and there was no reason to do that with a young horse. He’s only going to get better with age.” Jockey Garrett Gomez, rode Bob and John in the Wood and Derby. “He got bounced around the whole time,” said Gomez. “Every time I got him up on his feet, he got knocked down again. At the half-mile pole, I still thought I had a chance, but Dan Peitz’s horse (Steppenwolfer) ran into his hind-quarters, and that was it.

“It was about the fifth time we got slammed pretty good. If I was in his shoes, I would have gave up before then.” Comparing Bob and John’s build to a tall, lanky basketball player, as opposed to a solid, football linebacker, Gomez said, “He’s a horse that doesn’t want to be jostled. He’s got a nice, long, fluid stride, and once you get him into a rhythm, it’s beautiful. But once you get him knocked off stride, it takes him too long to get going again.” The smaller field for the Belmont and the track’s wide, sweeping turns “will do him a world of good,” Gomez said. “I think it will help his chances a lot.

“I don’t think (the mileanda-half) will be a problem.

He’ll throw :12’s (seconds per furlong) at you all the way around there.

Once you get him going, he’s kind of like a freight train. He just keeps coming.

I know he’ll have me in a good position turning for home. I’m excited.” Baffert, who won the Belmont with Point Given in 2001, has been cranking up Bob and John in the mornings at Santa Anita, working him six furlongs in 1:10.4, seven in 1:25.3 and six again in 1:12.1. He’ll ship to New York on Wednesday.

“The Belmont is still a big event,” said Baffert, who rescued the race from the doldrums when he went for the Triple Crown with Silver Charm in 1997 and Real Quiet again in 1998 (both finished second).

“The only bad part is seeing re-runs of those races over and over again.

That’s torture.”