ELMONT, N.Y. -- Many people will look at the resurgence of Lemon Drop Kid and assume it's the addition of blinkers that has turned him from a good horse into a monster.

	Lemon Drop Kid, ridden by Edgar Prado, won The Grade II $500,000 Suburban Handicap.

Scotty Schulhofer, Lemon Drop Kid's 74-year-old Hall of Fame trainer, says that would be a mistake. So Scotty, what is the difference?

"Prado," Schulhofer said, referring to jockey Edgar Prado. "Prado gets him out of the gate, gets him into position, and gets him there."

Tuesday, in a showdown with 1999 Suburban winner Behrens at Belmont Park, Prado rode an extraordinary race into the stretch and Lemon Drop Kid did the rest as the 1999 Belmont Stakes and Travers winner rolled to a 2 1/2-length victory in the $500,000, Grade 2 Suburban Handicap.

Behrens, who was pinned in along the rail by Prado for almost a mile, finished second, 4 1/4 lengths clear of Lager.

Schulhofer and owners Jeanne Vance and Laddie Dance fired Jose Santos and hired Edgar Prado following an embarrassing dead-heat win with an allowance horse named End of the Road at Aqueduct in April. While Santos suggested blinkers immediately following that race, it wasn't until Lemon Drop Kid was distracted by seeing the gate in the stretch of his third-place finish in the Pimlico Special that Schulhofer put them on.

Lemon Drop Kid looked like a new horse winning last month's Brooklyn Handicap and followed that up with another strong performance Tuesday. His final time of 1:58.97 was only 0.77 off the stakes and track record set by In Excess in the 1991 Suburban. Moreover, it was only the fourth time in the 112 years the Suburban has been run at 1 1/4 miles that it was run in under two minutes. Dr. Fager (1968) and Silver Buck (1982) both ran in 1:59.60.

Knowing he had only Behrens to beat, Prado made sure he was aware of him at all times. Prado had Lemon Drop Kid stalking front-running Wild Imagination through fractions of 23.61 seconds, 46.18, 1:09.94, and 1:34.36 while keeping Behrens and Jorge Chavez pinned along the rail. By the time Behrens found running room inside the eighth pole, Lemon Drop Kid was gone and Behrens made up no ground in the final furlong. Lemon Drop Kid returned $3.60 as the 4-5 favorite.

"Behrens was the only horse to beat in the race," Prado said. "I wanted to be right next to him. It seemed like he was galloping along all the way to the five-sixteenths pole. When [Lager] swung outside of him he found another gear and took off."

A tight-lipped James Bond tried to conceal his disappointment with Behrens's trip and gave a slight tip of the hat to Lemon Drop Kid.

"I thought he ran a good race," Bond said of Lemon Drop Kid. "Anytime you beat Behrens you've run a good race."

The victory moves Lemon Drop Kid very much into the thick of the championship picture in the handicap division. One of the horses Lemon Drop Kid trails is Golden Missile who defeated him in the Pimlico Special. Those two - as well as Behrens - are slated to meet again in the Whitney Handicap on Aug. 6 at Saratoga.

"I'm looking very much forward to it," Schulhofer said.