Andrew Gross: Historic Saratoga was a worthy home to three editions of the Belmont Stakes
Horse racing during the 158th running of the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course on June 06, 2026 in Saratoga Springs. Credit: Getty Images/Al Bello
SARATOGA SPRINGS – Historic Saratoga Race Course didn’t need the Belmont Stakes to bolster its legacy or to draw more fans. Just mutter “Saratoga” and any horse racing fan will respond with a knowing, blissed-out look of somebody stepping back in time. This bucolic, upstate city truly is home to one of the sport’s Edens and its annual summer meet is an industry highlight.
But the third leg of the Triple Crown sure needed Saratoga as a temporary home as Belmont Park was reconstructed. Saturday’s 158th Belmont Stakes, won by Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo, marked the third and final year at the course, which opened in 1863.
“Saratoga is a special place for horse racing,” said Cherie DeVaux, who was born here but raised in Florida and is now the first woman to win two Triple Crown races in one year thanks to Golden Tempo. “The town is built around the racing season. I’m going to miss our appetizer of Saratoga as we call it, ‘The Belatoga,’ but it’ll be nice to get back to Belmont.”
The new Belmont Park grandstand, part of a $575 million project for which New York State contributed $455 million, is set to open on Sept. 18 and its namesake race will revert to 11/2 miles next year after being run at 11/4 miles at Saratoga.
But if that was the trade-off of keeping the Belmont Stakes a vibrant race, it was worth it.
“Incredible,” Breeders’ Cup executive vice president and chief racing officer Dora Delgado told Newsday this week. “I came the first year and I kept hearing all the naysayers, all the doubters, ‘There’s no way they can have a Belmont at Saratoga. There’s no way they’re going to be able to pull this off.’ And it was spectacular. This NYRA (New York Racing Association) team is so good at what they do. They adapted and the town embraced it.
“I think it just really gave it a continuity to the race. It wouldn’t have been the same if they’d had to move it over to Aqueduct or had to postpone it.”
More on Aqueduct, which will close for good on June 28, shortly.
Delgado’s opinion matters because the return of racing to Elmont is much bigger than hosting the Triple Crown’s third leg again.
The Breeders’ Cup will play a large role in Belmont Park’s future. It will be held there on Oct. 29-30, 2027 and, Delgado believes, multiple times going forward.
Belmont Park previously hosted the Breeders’ Cup – Delgado called it horse racing’s “Super Bowl” –
in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2005 (Aqueduct hosted the second Breeders’ Cup in 1985).
Will it again be in such heavy rotation?
“Oh, I would expect very heavy,” Delgado said. “We’ve just been waiting. We’ve had our locations in Kentucky and California. The New York horsemen have been very patient, flying out to the West Coast for three years in a row. I can see it being a major hub for us. And it’s very easy for our internationals to get there.”
The Breeders’ Cup Challenge consists of 95 win-and-in qualification races around the world, including 50 in the U.S., of which 17 are in New York.
The first New York qualifier was Friday’s Grade 1 11/8-mile Ogden Phipps for fillies and mares four-years-old and up at Saratoga, won by Nitrogen, with two more on Saturday’s undercard. Nysos won the Grade 1 1-mile Hill ‘N’ Dale Metropolitan Handicap for three-year-olds and up over a field that included Journalism, last year’s Preakness winner and the runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. Reef Runner won the Grade 1 51/2-furlong Jaipur for three-year-olds and up.
“He was beautiful,” Reef Runner jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. said. “Definitely a Breeders’ Cup horse.”
This was not the first time the Belmont Stakes was moved to build a better Belmont Park.
From 1963-67, the race was run at Aqueduct, at that time, the more modern of the two tracks. It had re-opened in 1959 after a $33 million renovation and, in April, 1963, the Belmont Park grandstand, then more than 50 years old, and clubhouse were declared unsafe.
The difference between those races and the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga was Aqueduct was able to maintain the 11/2-mile length. Quadrangle spoiled Northern Dancer’s Triple Crown bid in 1964 and Amberoid, with Hall of Fame jockey and trainer Bill Boland aboard, did the same to Kauai King in 1966.
“A Triple Crown is a Triple Crown, no matter where it’s run.” the 92-year-old Boland, a Hall of Fame jockey and trainer, told NYRA recently from his Florida home.
Saratoga never had one at stake in its three years as host.
But the course still held up its end of the bargain.
“Unbelievable,” NBC Sports horse racing analyst, handicapper and former Ranger Ed Olczyk told Newsday. “NYRA deserves a standing ovation. Saratoga speaks for itself. I always think I’m walking back in time when I walk into Saratoga. It’s just breathtaking.”
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.
