Belmont Stakes handle strong, but falls short of last two Triple Crown attempts

Total betting on the Belmont Stakes this year, the first year a Triple Crown was on the line since American Pharoah’s 2015 Belmont, was $79.7 million, according to a chart of the race, a 68 percent gain on handle for the race last year but short of the amount of money bet three years ago.

Total handle of $137.48 million on the 13-race card, however, was slightly better than the 2015 card and a 46.6 percent gain on the total handle for last year’s 13-race Belmont Stakes card, according to charts. The record Belmont card handle of $150.3 million was set in 2014, when California Chrome attempted to win the Triple Crown.

The $79.7 million Belmont Stakes figure this year was the third-best of all time for the race, well behind the $90.3 million bet in 2014 and nearly three million dollars shy of the 2015 total of $82.4 million. The Belmont this year had a field of ten horses, compared to eight horses in 2015 and 11 horses in 2014.

While the result was solid, the decline in Belmont Stakes betting from the 2014 and 2015 totals perhaps indicated that this year’s Triple Crown winner, the undefeated Justify, was not as popular as his immediate predecessors in their runs for the Triple Crown. California Chrome had immense popularity, and American Pharoah was nearly his equal. Unlike Justify, both of those horses raced at 2. The Belmont was the sixth lifetime start for Justify.

Handle on this year’s Kentucky Derby and the Preakness set records this year, despite sloppy conditions at both Churchill Downs and Pimlico Race Course for their Triple Crown races. That seemed to augur well for the Belmont, especially considering the nearly ideal weather conditions on Saturday at Belmont Park on Long Island. In addition, wagering trends have been mostly positive for the racing industry over the past six months, in part because of tax changes made in the fall of last year that were favorable to winning horseplayers.

Handle on the 12 races other than the Belmont were sharply above last year’s handle totals for the same 12 races, and those figures were also higher, in many cases, for the comparable races on the 2015 card. Since the Belmont handle figure comprises more than half of the total handle on the card, it has an outsized effect on growth or declines in the total handle figure.

Compared to last year, handle totals on this year’s race were up most sharply in the superexotic pools, with a nearly 100 percent gain in the superfecta pool and an 84.4 percent gain in the trifecta pool. But with the exception of the superfecta pool, none of the single-race wagers attracted more money this year than in 2015. Exacta betting on this year’s race was $13.33 million, down 9.5 percent compared with the 2015 exacta pool.

The other Triple Crown races have also had significant gains in the superexotic pools. The new tax rules have most impacted winning wagers in superexotic pools.

Attendance at Belmont on Saturday was 90,000, the cap that the New York Racing Association implemented for the Belmont for the 2015 running of the race. The 2014 running, in which attendance was more than 100,000, was mired by widespread problems because of the crowd size, including lengthy transportation delays leaving the track.