Belmont Stakes: Air quality back to normal; racing, training resume
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ELMONT, N.Y. -- Instead of smoke, there were mostly blue skies and a yellow -- not blood orange -- sun high above Belmont Park Friday.
One day after training was canceled here and in Saratoga due to do poor air quality stemming from the Canadian wildfires, the air quality index -- which has now replaced legs as the first thing horsemen check in the morning -- dropped to the moderate level on Long Island, more than acceptable for normal training operations to resume.
By 11:30 a.m., the air quality index here, was in the good range.
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All nine horses entered in Saturday’s $1.5 million Belmont Stakes -- as well as most of the rest of the horse population here-- went to Belmont Park’s two tracks to train Friday morning.
Belmont morning-line favorite Forte and stablemate Tapit Trice galloped about 1 1/4 miles on the training track.
“Everything seemed to go smoothly,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “No repercussions from having the day off. Tapit Trice, he was on it, but he’s been on it for awhile. Forte was his normal self.”
Trainer Brad Cox sent his trio of Belmont horses -- Angel of Empire, Tapit Shoes, and Hit Show -- to the main track for their morning gallops.
“The horses really handled everything really well, that’s to be expected,” Cox said. ”All three had nice, controlled gallops on the main, really pleased with what we saw.”
Arcangelo had an easy gallop over the main as did Preakness winner National Treasure, and longshot Il Miracolo. Red Route One galloped over the training track.
On Thursday, the New York State Gaming Commission put out protocols regarding air quality, noting that if the air quality index (AQI) was 151-200 training would be suspended. If the AQI reaches 201 or higher no training or racing could take place.
There should be no issues for racing this weekend, including Saturday. Conditions were expected to continue to improve throughout Friday and there should be no air quality issues for Saturday’s 13-race Belmont Stakes program.