Within minutes of his Triple Crown victory Saturday afternoon at Belmont Park, horse racing fans began to ask the inevitable question: will American Pharoah race again? It is one of the paradoxes of thoroughbred racing that the very achievements that the sport most trumpets and that fans most want to see – victories in Triple…
As American Pharoah has made his way to one of horse racing’s biggest stages – Belmont Park with a Triple Crown on the line – the human stars of his show have been his owner, trainer, and jockey. And while they have rightly commanded the media spotlight, the three-year-old colt also has a supporting cast,…
Belmont Park: The Grade I, $1.5 million Belmont at 1 ½ miles #1 Mubtaahij (IRE) (10-1): De Kock runner gives some international flavor to the proceedings as he made a name for himself in Dubai this winter, culminating in a visually impressive score in Meydan’s GII UAE Derby. And while that form didn’t translate to…
On June 13, 1953, Alfred G. Vanderbilt Jr. watched his homebred Native Dancer win the Belmont Stakes, eking out a nose victory to complete the third leg of Thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown. He’d won three weeks earlier, too, at Pimlico, but had lost the Kentucky Derby. One might have forgiven Vanderbilt for a bittersweet sadness…
When Smarty Jones ran for the Triple Crown in 2004, spectators at Belmont Park faced long lines for betting, bathrooms, and concessions; they waited hours for Long Island Rail Road trains after the races were over. When Big Brown ran for the Triple Crown in 2008, spectators sat in extreme heat and humidity and the…
When horses break from the gate for the 147th Belmont Stakes on Saturday, they will do so directly in front of tens of thousands of people, on their feet on the crowded apron and in the clubhouse and grandstand. They will circle the enormous Belmont oval, the only one of its kind in the United…
NYRA president and CEO Chris Kay appeared on the popular local news channel NY1 to talk about the plans for this weekend’s Belmont Stakes. Kay said that he thought that last year’s announced attendance of 102,199 was far short of the actual attendance, which he estimated as closer to 115,000. Of Wednesday’s post position draw…
Brooklyn Backstretch 