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Health, History and Horses: These three “H’s” are inscribed on a sign welcoming travelers venturing through New York State’s Adirondack Mountains when they arrive in Saratoga Springs.
Horses have always been the main event here, and Saratoga Race Course, the oldest active sports venue in the country, is at the heart of this town of 30,000 people.
Since opening before the end of the Civil War, Saratoga has seen upsets, including Upset defeating the glorious Man O’War and Triple Crown winner American Pharoah losing to Keen Ice at the Travers.
On June 8, the Belmont Stakes will be held at Saratoga Race Course, and for the first time, the world’s best three-year-old horses will compete in a Triple Crown race.
“There have been rumors floating around about the Belmont at Saratoga for the last couple of years,” Mayor John Safford said, “and we’re very excited that it’s actually happening.”
The excitement is sweet every year. In July, Saratoga transforms into a race town: Parked cars line the streets, fans with coolers spill onto the sidewalks, kids yell “We’ll get dollar water here!”, the smell of cigarette smoke and horses fills the air, and the downtown restaurants are full.
This is Saratoga’s fifth season of horse racing. The town where races take place two months of the year, centered around a one-mile dirt track, has been around for almost 160 years, since John Morrissey came here in 1863 looking for a place to gamble during the day.
Rumors of a race at Saratoga emerged at a time when the New York Racing Association was eyeing a $455 million renovation of Belmont Park in 2024-25 and needed a new place to host the final leg of the Triple Crown. NYRA Chairman David O’Rourke extended the invitation to Saratoga, one of the world’s oldest racing cities and home to the National Racing Hall of Fame.
In October 2022, Saratoga Chamber of Commerce President Todd Shimkus was informed that Saratoga would host the Belmont in 2024 and 2025 if funding for renovations was approved.
“It’s no exaggeration to say that everyone in the room wanted to hug David O’Rourke for the opportunity to host this event,” Shimkus said. “We’ve been anticipating this event for nearly two years and we can’t wait.”
This won’t be the first time the race, which is usually run at 1.5 miles, has been held somewhere other than Belmont Park – it was held at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens from 1963-67 while Belmont was undergoing renovation.
Mike Veitch, a historian at the National Museum of Racing and a longtime horseracing reporter, doesn’t know why the closer Aqueduct was quickly overlooked, but he understands why Saratoga was chosen.
“Obviously Saratoga is popular and a lot of people come here, so that makes sense,” Veitch said. “I think NYRA knows there will be a lot of people here, and there will be.”
NYRA has limited attendance at Saratoga Race Course for the Belmont Stakes to 50,000, right at capacity, and Veitch and other locals are skeptical that the track can operate an event of that magnitude.
The city is gearing up, and Belmont won’t be the first big event to be held at Saratoga: The Grade 1 Travers Stakes is the culmination of the track’s annual summer racing, drawing more than 40,000 spectators.
Last year, Phish played a sold-out concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center the night before their Traverse show, drawing 27,000 people, and then drew 47,000 people to the Traverse show the following day.
The record for one-day attendance at Saratoga was 72,745 in 2007, well above Belmont’s limit of 50,000.
“Fifty thousand people coming here on a Saturday, June 8th, is unheard of,” Shimkus said, “We’ve never had that many people come here on June 8th in the history of Saratoga Springs, but we do often have 50,000 people here in the summer.”
Whether historians and locals like Belmont’s arrival in Saratoga or not, the estimated $50 million in added revenue and publicity for the town is hard to ignore, even after Kentucky Derby winner Mystique Dann lost the Preakness Stakes, ending his chances of winning the Triple Crown at the place affectionately known as the Spa.
But that possibility remains a year away, and Safford believes it could be possible up to three years down the line, depending on the pace of renovations in the southern part of the state.
In any case, the rebuilding of Belmont Race Course has allowed Saratoga Race Course, a pillar of the horse racing world since its founding, to add another major achievement to its illustrious history.
“We’ve been racing horses here for nearly 160 years,” Shimkus said, “and it’s a major destination in a town of 28,000 people. Having the Belmont Stakes here really helps tell that story.”
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AP Horse Racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing