Justify gives Belmont Park bump in business
ELMONT, N.Y. – Due in large part to Justify, the Belmont Park spring-summer meet showed significant gains in handle at the 2018 meet compared to last year.
All-sources handle for the 53-day meet was $634,276,776, a 9.1 percent increase from the 2017 figure of $581,496,467 when 54 cards were run. There were 54 cards scheduled this year, but the July 1 program was canceled due to extreme heat.
Ontrack handle was $79,507,416, a 2 percent increase over last year’s figure of $77,960,658.
All-sources handle on Belmont Stakes Day – when Justify completed the 13th Triple Crown in history – was $137,954,895, a 47.3 percent increase over the 2017 figure of $93,666,837. Belmont Stakes Day handle was the second-highest ever, behind only 2014 when California Chrome failed in his Triple Crown bid.
Average field size for the 2018 meet was 7.49, down from 7.80 last year. Average field size on dirt was 6.76, down from 6.94, while average field size on turf was 8.26, down from 8.80 in 2017.
Belmont once again benefitted from mostly good weather. There were 242 turf races run and 28 transferred to the dirt compared to 234 turf races run and 45 moved to the dirt last summer. Over the final 33 cards of this year’s meet there was only one day when scheduled turf races had to be run on dirt.
Irad Ortiz Jr. won his first outright Belmont spring-summer title with 60 wins, 11 more than both his brother Jose and Manny Franco. Ortiz, who shared the 2014 riding title with Javier Castellano, also was the leading jockey in purse money won this meet with $5.5 million. This year, Castellano finished in a three-way tie for fourth in the standings with Junior Alvarado and Joel Rosario, each with 35 wins.
Chad Brown won his third straight Belmont spring-summer title with 34 wins and $4.5 million in purse money won, despite winning just four races over the final 15 cards. Christophe Clement (21), Rudy Rodriguez (20), Jason Servis (19) and Todd Pletcher (18) completed the top five.
Michael Dubb was the meet’s leading owner with 19 victories and earnings of more than $2.34 million. M and M Racing was second in wins with eight.