The New York Racing Association will cap the attendance to this year’s Belmont Stakes at 90,000, in part to avoid overcrowding and other logistical problems that were incurred at last year’s event.
Tickets for the June 6 Belmont Stakes will go on sale Monday at 10 a.m., the New York Racing Association announced Saturday, and, unsurprisingly, there will be price increases.
This Triple Crown was definitely a fascinating figure-making challenge because only the Preakness was uncomplicated. It also was a fascinating look at how we all analyze Triple Crown races. Or overanalyze.
Soon after California Chrome finished fourth in the Belmont Stakes, my sister fired off a private Facebook message likening the Triple Crown to the Hunger Games – a hyperbolic tantrum I chalked up to frustration and disappointment.
Commissioner, the Belmont Stakes runner-up, will miss the summer’s major races in the 3-year-old division due to a chip in his left front ankle that will require surgery, according to a press release issued Wednesday by his owner, the WinStar Farm.
Last Saturday, it was the same as it ever was. As the Belmont Stakes drew nigh, the bulk of the 102,199 fans were either nose to noggin on the apron or pressed against the back of the grandstand seats, dozens deep on tiptoes, straining to catch even the slightest glimpse of the live action. The rest gathered beneath banks of TV monitors, resigned to watching on a video screen what they had hoped to savor in the flesh.
Handle on the Belmont Stakes on Saturday at Belmont Park was $92.15 million, according to a revised chart released by Equibase, slightly higher than an initial estimate reported by Daily Racing Form just after the first chart was released Saturday night.
Had California Chrome finished off a Triple Crown sweep with a victory in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, he would have had the male 3-year-old championship locked up, and very likely Horse of the Year, too, even with more than six months to go in the calendar year. Instead, both categories are still in play after California Chrome finished in a dead heat for fourth in the Belmont.
Steve Coburn, a co-owner of California Chrome, offered a sincere, emotional apology Monday for unsportsmanlike and insensitive statements he had made in the aftermath of California Chrome’s defeat in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.
After California Chrome finished in a dead-heat for fourth place behind the victorious Tonalist, co-owner Steve Coburn ranted on national television that winning the Belmont with a rested, fresh horse such as Tonalist was “the coward’s way out.” He was universally denounced as a graceless and clueless bad sport. While there was unanimity of opinion about Coburn, another post-race issue provoked spirited debate: Did Espinoza bear a heavy load of responsibility for California Chrome’s defeat?
