Belmont Park has work cut out to match last two meets

ELMONT, N.Y. – Talk about a tough act to follow.

Last year’s Belmont spring/summer meet bore witness to the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years when American Pharoah capped off his historic run with a 5 1/2-length victory in the Belmont Stakes. That and glorious weather led to a successful meet that saw average daily all-sources handle hit $10.7 million. The year before, when the meet was a week shorter, average daily handle was $11 million, and the handle numbers for California Chrome’s failed Triple Crown bid remain a Belmont Stakes record.

On Friday, the 59-day Belmont spring/summer meet gets under way with a nine-race card. New York Racing Association officials can only hope that good things happen in threes and that there is a Triple Crown on the line when this year’s Belmont Stakes is run on June 11, the latest date possible for the event. From 1997-99 and 2002-04, there were three consecutive Triple Crown bids.

Over the last few years, NYRA has attempted to build the Belmont Stakes into a must-see event with or without a Triple Crown on the line. It has made the day into a Breeders’ Cup-type card, with 10 stakes – including six Grade 1’s – worth $7.5 million. It has also tried to build up the days leading up to the Belmont with what it calls the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, with stakes-laden cards on Thursday and Friday and entertainment on Friday and Belmont Saturday.

This year’s Racing Festival will include the inaugural running of the Rags to Riches, a 1 1/2-mile dirt race for older females, and the Belmont Coronation Invitational, a 1 15/16-mile turf race for older females.

Martin Panza, NYRA’s senior director of racing operations, also added a 1 3/8-mile dirt race – the $100,000 Flat Out on May 15 – as a prep for the $400,000 Brooklyn at 1 1/2 miles on Belmont Day.

“We think there’s a group of horses that want to do that,” said Panza. “Fortunately, we can offer them that opportunity.”

Panza is also attempting to strengthen the long-dormant 2-year-old program at Belmont. There will be four juvenile maiden races worth $100,000 each – two for females, two for males – leading up to the Astoria and Tremont stakes.

At Aqueduct, there was one $100,000 2-year-old maiden race for each gender, but both ran with only five-horse fields.

“It’s new,” Panza said. “It’s not where we’re at but where we want to be three or four years from now. I want owners to have confidence that these races will go in New York. It’s a small part of the whole program, but it is a part of it.”

Another part of the program Panza introduced two years ago is the Stars and Stripes card, topped by the $1.25 million Belmont Derby for 3-year-old males and the $1 million Belmont Oaks for 3-year-old fillies. Both are 1 1/4-mile races on turf. That card, which features four other graded events, will be held July 9, later than usual owing to the calendar.

That’s not the only thing that will be later than usual at this meet. First post on most days will be 1:30 p.m. Eastern. Panza said that is to accommodate a new live two-hour daily show of NYRA’s races on the Madison Square Garden cable network beginning May 18. The program will be from 4-6 p.m. and show at least four live races.

Weather permitting, expect to see a lot of turf racing at Belmont. Last year, there were 264 turf races run during the meet, the second-most behind only the 275 run in 2010. There are five turf sprints carded for Saturday, though there is a chance of afternoon showers.

In addition to some new stakes, there will be a couple of new outfits based at Belmont this spring. Mark Casse is expected to have 30 horses here, while Ralph Nicks will have 18. Michael Pino, who began a New York experiment in the winter and won eight races, will keep 15 here.

With NYRA closing the Aqueduct backstretch for the summer following training on Sunday, trainers Rudy Rodriguez and Rick Violette, as well as others, will be moving their base of operations to Belmont.

They will all likely be chasing Todd Pletcher and Chad Brown, who finished one-two in the Belmont standings last year. Pletcher, who won his eighth Belmont title, won 43 races, one short of David Jacobson’s Belmont spring/summer meet record, set in 2013.

Javier Castellano, a three-time Eclipse Award-winning rider, will be in search of his fourth straight Belmont spring/summer jockey title. He won it last year, 56-55, over Irad Ortiz Jr. Irad’s brother Jose Ortiz was third with 47 winners.

Jose Ortiz won the Aqueduct winter and spring meet titles and believes he’s ready to compete for a Belmont crown with the likes of his brother, Castellano, John Velazquez, and Joel Rosario.

“I feel a lot of confidence right now,” Ortiz said during his strong Aqueduct spring season, in which he won 37 races. “I’ve been riding for four years, and I don’t make the same mistakes that I was making before. I learned a lot. Sometimes we make [mistakes], but now I feel more mature to ride with these guys when they come back. Johnny, Javier, Joel – they’re great riders, and you have to be ready. I think I am.”

Rosario, who broke his wrist in February at Gulfstream Park, returned to action Wednesday at Keeneland. He is named on five horses on opening day at Belmont.

Jose Lezcano and Luis Saez are back. Expect Manny Franco and Kendrick Carmouche to improve upon their stats from last year.