2150 Hempstead Turnpike
Elmont, New York  11003
(718) 641-4700
http://www.nyra.com/belmont

Belmont Park, one of the major horseracing facilities in the State of New York, is located just outside of New York City in Elmont. It opened on May 4, 1905 and boasts the largest dirt course — at 1 1/2 miles — in Thoroughbred racing. Belmont is considered one of the most prestigious of racetracks in the United States due both to its beautiful landscaping and to the fact that the last race of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, is contested here each year.

It was on this track in 1973 that one of the greatest racehorses of all times, Secretariat, won the Belmont Stakes in record time and captured the Triple Crown, the first horse to accomplish this feat since Citation in 1948 . In addition to finishing the one and one-half miles in an astonishing two minutes and 24 seconds, he ran that race like no horse ever has before or since. He began pulling away at the 3/4 mile mark and then, unbelievably, kept widening his lead. He was 14 lengths ahead with 1/4 mile to go, “moving like a tremendous machine” as the race caller, Chic Anderson, exclaimed, and he still kept running faster, finishing the race 31 lengths ahead of the rest of the field. Quite fittingly, there is a statue of Secretariat at Belmont Park, the home of his most glorious victory.

Racing at Belmont takes place twice a year at the spring/summer and the fall meets. The spring/summer meet usually starts on the second Wednesday in May and ends on the fourth Sunday of July. The fall meet, known as the Fall Championship Meet, begins on the Friday following Labor Day and ends on the fourth Sunday of October. Belmont has been the host track for the World Thoroughbred Championship Breeder’s Cup four times … in 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2005. The Breeder’s Cup in 2001 was the first major sports event to be held in the area after the September 11 attacks. Anyone who saw the Breeder’s Cup Classic race that day in October 2001 will never forget the heart-pounding stretch duel between Tiznow, the American horse and Giant’s Causeway from Europe. In the final stride, Tiznow hit the wire first to the cheers of the crowd and Tom Durkin, who called the race, proclaimed with heartfelt emotion that “Tiznow wins it for America!”

In addition to the Belmont Stakes and occasionally the Breeder’s Cup, other major races held at Belmont include the Jockey Club Gold Cup, the Suburban Handicap, and the Metropolitan Mile, also known as the “Met Mile,” which is run on Memorial Day. There are also two important races for fillies, the Mother Goose Stakes and the Coaching Club American Oaks, which are run at Belmont as the first two legs of the New York Racing Association’s Triple Tiara series for fillies. The third is the Alabama Stakes, run at Saratoga. In addition to the races on the dirt track, there are important turf (grass) races that include the Bowling Green Handicap, Man O’ War Stakes, Flower Bowl Invitational Stakes, and the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational. Belmont’s Fall Championship meet includes New York Showcase Day in late October, with seven stakes races for New York-bred horses with the richest race on that day being the $250,000 Empire Classic.

With all these great races attracting the finest racehorses in the country, it’s easy to see why Belmont Park is considered one of the elite tracks of Thoroughbred horseracing in America. Along with its sister track, Saratoga, and the other prestigious tracks across the country including Del Mar and Santa Anita in California and of course, the best-known of all tracks in the United States, Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, Belmont Park is an exciting travel destination for the horseracing fan.

If you have an opportunity to spend a day or a weekend at this track and watch the races for yourself, try to find a quiet time to stand and look at the track, take in the great sweeping turns and maybe, for just a moment ,you’ll hear the echo of rapid hoofbeats moving closer and closer with alarming speed and perhaps you’ll catch a ghostly glimpse of that great red horse still “moving like a tremendous machine.” This is the magic that is Belmont Park.