Belmont Stakes among 59 stakes to be run at spring-summer meet

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Topped by the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes, there will be 59 stakes worth $16.95 million offered at the 2022 Belmont Park spring-summer meet, a schedule that virtually mirrors the 2021 schedule.

The 44-day Belmont meet runs from April 28 through July 10.

The Belmont Stakes, the third leg of racing’s Triple Crown, is set for June 11 and highlights a blockbuster card that has eight Grade 1 races plus the Grade 2 Brooklyn. The Grade 1 stakes include the $1 million Metropolitan Handicap, which is the intended mid-year target for the exciting older sprinter Flightline. Other Grade 1’s on that card are the Manhattan, Ogden Phipps, Acorn, Just a Game, Woody Stephens, and Jaipur.

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The $750,000 New York Stakes, a 1 1/4-mile turf race for fillies and mares, was elevated to Grade 1 status for the 2022 running. The New York is scheduled for June 10 on a card that includes five stakes. The June 9 card, topped by the Grade 2, $200,000 Wonder Again Stakes, kicks off the three-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival.

The only other change to the schedule is the Intercontinental, a Grade 3 stakes for female turf horses, which has been shortened to six furlongs from seven furlongs. That race is run on June 10, one day before the Grade 1 Just a Game for the same division at a mile.

Tickets for the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival go on sale next Thursday at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster.com

Caesars, the casino and sportsbook company, has been named sponsor of NYRA’s Turf Triple Series, which starts with the $1 million Belmont Derby on July 9. Other races in the series are the Saratoga Derby and the Jockey Club Derby, which is run in September at the Belmont Park fall meet.