Four weeks after the New York Racing Association hosted the five-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga, it now will host the July Fourth Racing Festival, four days of racing beginning Thursday that previously were run as the final week of the Belmont Park spring/summer program and last year as part of the Belmont at Aqueduct spring/summer meet. If not officially, then essentially, this week kicks off the summer racing season at Saratoga but NYRA officials don’t want it to appear as though they are planning to extend the Saratoga meet beyond its typical 40-day season, so it is not considering Thursday opening day. “This is all transitory,” NYRA president and CEO Dave O’Rourke said Monday. “Once Belmont’s done, we’re back to a normal meet. These events were designed for Belmont so the plan is to move them back.” The events to which O’Rourke was referring are the Belmont Derby and Belmont Oaks, which, since 2014 have been run typically on the same card around July Fourth and kick off a three-race series of turf stakes for 3-year-olds and 3-year-old fillies, respectively. :: Access morning workout reports straight from the tracks and get an edge with DRF Clocker Reports “We wanted to run these turf races up there,” O’Rourke said. “We figured it would be better business and the way the calendar landed it just made it sense.” From a business perspective, in 2023 when the Belmont Derby and Belmont Oaks were held at Belmont Park, all-sources handle on a 12-race card was $24,987,545. In 2024, when those races were held at Aqueduct as part of an 11-race card, total handle was $12,031,122. “Saratoga is always going to be enticing because it’s the mecca,” O’Rourke said. “Any race up there is always going to drive more business, especially the simulcast market. The old Belmont was an extremely strong signal as well so we expect new Belmont to be powerful. Business factors in but there’s a lot of other factors as well; there’s the [turf] courses, there’s consultation with the horsemen and the community.” This year, NYRA is separating the races, placing the Belmont Derby on Friday’s July Fourth card – along with four other stakes – and running the Belmont Oaks on Saturday with three other stakes. All of this is being done because Belmont Park is undergoing renovations and is not scheduled to reopen until September of 2026. O’Rourke said the fact Labor Day – typically closing day of the traditional Saratoga meet – is Sept. 1, made the transition of moving those races to Saratoga a bit more seamless. Next year, with Labor Day Sept. 7, it would mean the traditional Saratoga meet opens July 16. Moving the July Fourth events to Saratoga would mean opening Saratoga two weeks earlier or force NYRA to move the Belmont Derby and Belmont Oaks back to the second weekend of July in order to run them in Saratoga. O’Rourke said a decision on whether NYRA would come to Saratoga early in 2026 likely won’t be made until later this summer. There will be 11 races on Thursday and Friday with first post scheduled for 1:10 p.m. There will be 12 races Saturday with first post at 12:45 p.m. NYRA is planning a 10-race card for Sunday with a first post at 1:10 p.m. Echo Sound tops Victory Ride Trainer Rusty Arnold stopped short of calling Victory Ride the best horse he ever trained, but the filly who won the Grade 1 Test for him in 2001 “was by far the fastest horse I ever had,” Arnold said. In 2003, NYRA inaugurated the Victory Ride Stakes and it’s a race Arnold has tried to win three times without success. Thursday, Arnold sends out Echo Sound, the probable favorite in a field of five 3-year-old fillies set to run 6 1/2 furlongs in the Grade 3, $175,000 Victory Ride, one of two stakes on an 11-race card. Echo Sound, a daughter of Echo Town, has won four of five starts, her lone defeat coming in the Fern Creek at Churchill Downs last November. Arnold said Echo Sound came out of that race with a problem that needed plenty of time. On May 16, Echo Sound came off a 5 1/2-month layoff to win the Grade 3 Miss Preakness at Pimlico by two lengths. “She had run on three different racetracks, I wasn’t worried about her needing a certain type of racetrack,” Arnold said. “I was like every trainer bringing one back off a layoff, ‘Did I do enough, is she fit enough?’ Evidently, she was. She came out of it good and appears to be in good shape.” Arnold, who sent out Red Carpet Ready to a seventh-place finish as the favorite in the 2023 Victory Ride, said “this race means a lot to me since we had Victory Ride. “We set our sights on this right after the last one and I wouldn’t anticipate her having any issue with 6 1/2 furlongs.” Luis Saez rides Echo Sound from post 3. Indy Bay comes into the Victory Ride on a three-race winning streak, all after she was transferred to Saffie Joseph Jr. following a private purchase by C2 Racing. Indy Bay comes off a pace-pressing victory in the Jersey Girl Stakes at Saratoga on June 8. Beauty Reigns, third, beaten three-quarters of a length as the favorite in the Jersey Girl, is back in this spot. Hollygrove, third to Echo Sound in the Miss Preakness, looms the likely pacesetter under John Velazquez. Whatintheliteral, trained by Jena Antonucci, is winless in eight starts since upsetting the Astoria Stakes at Saratoga 13 months ago. With only a five-horse field, the Victory Ride goes as race 3. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.