For the second day in a row at Belmont Park, it paid to disregard a horse’s last race when handicapping the feature.

In Thursday’s Tom Fool, Left Bank, coming off a well-beaten fifth as the favorite in the Met Mile, set a track record winning by 6 1/4 lengths. Yesterday, Volponi registered a similar rebound in the Poker Handicap. After finishing fourth as the odds-on choice in his last start, the 4-year-old son of Cryptoclearance charged from off the pace to win the Poker by 2 1/4 under Shaun Bridgmohan.

“I really had a good trip,” Bridgmohan said. “He broke alertly, and Ihad room. We were going good fractions [:22.4, :45.1], and when I pushed the button he just took off.”

Volponi, trained by Hall-of-Famer P.G. Johnson, ran the mile on turf in a blazing 1:32.1 to light up the tote with a $20.60 mutuel. Front-running Saint Verre held for second at 18-1 to complete a $217 exacta, with Navesink third.

Shibboleth, favored at 1-2, mounted a brief challenge turning for home but faded to finish fifth.

“I never had any horse at any time,” said his jockey, Jerry Bailey. “I just had nothing.”