Belmont Park ready for its next chapter
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ELMONT, N.Y. – Ready or not, a new era of New York racing begins Friday at Belmont Park with the christening of a new grandstand and the unveiling of four new racing surfaces.
The new grandstand, at roughly 275,000 square feet, is about a third of the size of the cavernous grandstand that opened in 1968, which replaced the one that opened in 1905. Gone are the familiar brick walls and ivy, replaced by glass and a white aluminum composite façade.
“It’s going to take some getting used to,” said Andrew Offerman, senior vice president of racing and operations for the New York Racing Association. “Racing’s been here for 121 years; the first venue wasn’t like the second one. The second one’s not like the third one. We’ll continue to adjust and adapt, but I think it’s been largely well received.”
The opening of Belmont and the first day of racing here in 1,167 days, or since July 9, 2023, is the culmination of a project that began when Gov. Kathy Hochul approved a $455 million loan to NYRA from the state to rebuild the grandstand. NYRA used an additional $100 million to redo the three existing racing surfaces – one dirt and two turf – and build a synthetic track. NYRA will repay the loan with revenue earmarked for the company from the slot revenue at the Resorts World casino adjacent to Aqueduct, the Queens, N.Y., track that ended racing for good in June.
The Belmont building, which stands five stories, is not complete, and thus only the first two floors will be open to patrons, with the fifth floor also open to racing officials. Floors 3 and 4, which include box seat areas and luxury suites, are expected to come on line in the first quarter of 2027.
As Belmont will still be partly a construction zone, attendance will be capped at 6,000 for opening weekend and then at 4,000 starting Sept. 24 and until further notice. NYRA plans a full-blown opening next spring ahead of the Wood Memorial.
General admission costs $7 in advance, $10 on-site. Parking, which will be scarce, is best purchased in advance and online. New rules prohibit fans from bringing coolers into the plant, including the backyard.
General admission allows access to multiple areas on the first floor, including the Trackside Lounge, which has an airport terminal look and feel with 110 seats and 20 televisions; Silks, a larger bar area; and Big Red’s, a Secretariat-themed bar. There also is the Homestretch Market, which includes a bar and concessions.
There is access to the expansive apron as well as views of the larger paddock. Regarding the apron, it resembles a freshly paved driveway at the moment, but benches and picnic tables will be set up over time.
There is a large viewing area surrounding the paddock that has high-top tables and chairs accessible on a first-come, first-served basis. Beginning Sept. 24, and on select days, general admission also allows access to grandstand seating.
The second floor includes a racebook that is available only to NYRA Bets customers and has 61 individual desks, a dozen forward-facing televisions, and a concession area. Also on the second floor are more upscale hospitality options, including The Overlook, Turf Club Lounge, and Turf Club Restaurant.
Belmont Park shares property with UBS Arena, an 18,000-seat venue that is home to the New York Islanders of the NHL. UBS also hosts concerts, other sporting events, and family shows. It will be interesting to see how the two venues interact, something that will become evident Friday as UBS does host a concert that evening.
The primary reason for Belmont opening before everything is complete is to utilize the new racing surfaces. The 1 1/2-mile main dirt track was entirely redone as were the two turf courses. A fourth surface, a one-mile Tapeta track, was installed and will be used for off-the-turf races as well as the sole racing surface during winter months.
“First and foremost, it’s important to get back here and get on the surfaces that are available to us not only from a content perspective, but also how much we’ve used Aqueduct over the past three years,” Offerman said. “It’s great to get back here and get onto what I think are the best surfaces in North America. That’s exciting.”
The main track at Belmont Park features a limestone base topped with a clay pad below the racing surface itself. The finish line has been moved down the stretch by 125 feet.
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The two turf courses have been shortened but are but are wider in the stretch, making more running lanes available. The inner turf course, reduced from 1 3/16 miles to a little over 1 1/8 miles, is 102 feet wide. The outer course, or Widener Turf, was reduced from 1 5/16 miles to about 1 1/4 miles and is 100-feet wide. The rails on both courses will be out 36 feet this weekend as NYRA plans to save the inside part of the course for the bigger turf stakes later in September and in October.
“This is awesome,” said Glen Kozak, NYRA’s executive vice president/operations and capital projects. “To have the ability to do everything that was done out here with the drainage, the irrigation, the surfaces, the [safety] rails, the consistent widths of the track now for the turf compared with what we used to have. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it’s great to be back at Belmont.”
Early reviews of the racing surfaces from horsemen have been positive. After visiting Belmont Park in August, the connections of Japanese superstar horse Forever Young decided to ship the horse here to run in Friday’s Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup, the featured event on the opening-day nine-race card.
“Belmont Park is the best complex for training now in North America,” said Hiroshi Ando, traveling manager for the connections of Forever Young.
The introduction of the Tapeta surface has been met with mixed reviews from horsemen, some wondering what to do with their dirt horses for the winter months. At least one trainer, Rudy Rodriguez, has applied for stalls at Fair Grounds. Other trainers may look to send strings to tracks in the Mid-Atlantic, Florida, or Oaklawn. NYRA is anticipating a winter influx of trainers, specifically from Woodbine, who want to race on Tapeta.
NYRA has instituted a bonus program for horsemen shipping horses from out-of-state jurisdictions to run at Belmont this fall.
Friday’s Grade 1, $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup is the first of 72 stakes with purses totaling $17.7 million to be offered from now until Dec. 6. The Jockey Club is the first of seven Breeders’ Cup qualifying races to be run between Friday and Oct. 3.
For the fall meet, which runs through Dec. 6, racing will be conducted largely Thursdays through Sundays, with the exception of there being no racing on Thanksgiving (Nov. 26).
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