Handle dips during Belmont spring-summer meet

Average daily all-sources handle for this year’s Belmont Park spring/summer meet was $10,917,735, down 8.8 percent compared to the 2018 figure of $11,967,486, according to numbers provided by the New York Racing Association.

Overall, all-sources handle was $524,051,257, down 17.4 percent compared to the $634,276,775 handled during the 2018 meeting. This year, ontrack handle was $62,499,109, down 21.4 percent from the 2018 figure of $79,507,415.

This year’s Belmont meet was 48 days, five days fewer than the 53 days run in 2018. There were 448 races run with an average field size of 7.06 in 2019 compared to 501 races run with an average field size of 7.49 in 2018.

This year, there were 188 turf races run with 46 transferred to the main track and three more canceled due to inclement weather. In 2018, Belmont conducted 242 turf races with only 28 having to be transferred to the main track.

The 2018 Belmont meet was buoyed by the Triple Crown bid of Justify in the Belmont Stakes. The all-sources handle for that card was $137,954,895. This year, there was no Triple Crown on the line on the Belmont Stakes card, which had an all-sources handle of $100,881,281.

This year, NYRA conducted twilight racing on Thursdays instead of Fridays. Largely due to inclement weather, those days did poorly, business-wise, and NYRA president and CEO Dave O’Rourke said it is unlikely twilight racing will be conducted on Thursdays next year.

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