Much to look forward to at Belmont Park meeting
The move from Aqueduct to Belmont Park usually signals that better times are ahead for the New York Racing Association. Hopefully, good things will come to those who wait.
Entries for the first few days of the Belmont Park meet have been light. Wednesday’s opening-day nine-race card has 70 horses, with two five-horse fields among the first four races. Only eight races filled for Thursday, with three of those races having just six horses each. Entries for Friday’s card were to be taken Sunday but were postponed until Tuesday.
It’s an inauspicious beginning to the 59-day Belmont spring-summer meet, which runs through July 19. The Belmont meet follows a weather-worn Aqueduct winter-spring season where 16 cards were canceled due to inclement weather and many weekday cards were reduced to eight races.
Martin Panza, NYRA’s senior vice president of racing operations, said the light entries could be due to many New York-based stables still in transition from Florida and Kentucky.
“I’m not going to panic just yet,” Panza said. “Certainly, we’re not where we can be. In another seven to 10 days, people will get settled in. We’re just in an in-between period at the moment.”
In addition to his job as senior vice president of racing operations, Panza has taken over the role of racing secretary for Belmont and Saratoga. Panza had hired Frank Gabriel for that position, but Gabriel worked only at the Belmont spring-summer and Saratoga meets before going back to Dubai.
“At this stage, I just felt it was the best thing to do for the immediate future,” Panza said of taking over as racing secretary. “Long term, we’re looking for a strong candidate to fill this position.”
Last year, the Belmont spring-summer meet saw the implementation of Panza’s “bigger is better” theory with an enhanced Belmont Stakes Day and the creation of Stars and Stripes Day, a program highlighted by a pair of seven-figure turf races for 3-year-olds designed to draw international fields.
This year, NYRA is taking it one step further, trying to enhance Belmont Stakes week by building up the days leading up to the 147th running of the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of racing’s Triple Crown, on June 6.
Billed as the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, the three cards June 4-6 will offer 17 stakes worth $9.15 million in purse money. The June 4 card will have two stakes, while the June 5 program will have five stakes topped by the Grade 2, $300,000 New York Stakes for fillies and mares going 1 1/4 miles on turf.
NYRA has bumped up the purses of the June 4 Astoria Stakes, for juvenile fillies, and the June 5 Tremont, for juveniles, to $250,000. Both races are run at 5 1/2 furlongs.
“If you break your maiden in April or May, you have a spot to run, and you don’t have to sit there and train for two months,” Panza said.
The Belmont Stakes, with a purse of $1.5 million, is one of 10 stakes on what will be a 13-race card with stakes purses worth $7.55 million. The card includes the $1.25 million Metropolitan Handicap, the $1 million Ogden Phipps and the $1 million Manhattan – all Grade 1 races.
There will be two new outfits on the grounds this spring and summer, with trainers Brian Lynch and Joe Sharp taking stalls.
Overall, Belmont will offer 60 stakes worth $18.5 million in purses. Wednesday’s $100,000 Elusive Quality Stakes, for 3-year-olds and up at seven furlongs, drew a field of nine for the turf, plus two more if the race is transferred to the main track, as was last year’s inaugural running. The forecast for Wednesday is for sunny skies with temperatures in the low 70s.
King Kreesa, a six-time stakes winner who has a 5-3-2 record from 11 starts over Belmont’s grass, returns from a 193-day layoff for trainer David Donk. Last year, King Kreesa won the West Point Stakes at Saratoga off a 259-day layoff.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 6 King Kreesa. Trainer David Donk is 28-3-5-4 with a $0.95 ROI over the past five years going route to sprint on turfClick for more details. – Mike Hogan
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At the Aqueduct meet, Donk had a 2-2-0 record from five starters returning off a layoff of 150 days or more, including Vision Perfect winning the Woodhaven Stakes off a 174-day layoff.
Bill Mott, who trained Elusive Quality, sends out the uncoupled entry of Mosler and Sinatra. Mosler is making just his second start on turf, and Mott said cutting back to seven furlongs might help him.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 1 Sinatra. Trainer Bill Mott is 37-4-6-3 with a $0.52 ROI over the past two years going route to sprint on turf. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan
“He had one race on the grass in Florida. It was a mile and a sixteenth, which was a little bit far for him,” Mott said. “It wasn’t a bad race, but at that distance, he was a little bit rank.”
Stakes-winning veterans Tightend Touchdown, Spring to the Sky, and Dimension also are in this field.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 4 Mosler. Trainer Bill Mott is 8-0-1-2 over the past five years going dirt to turf and route to sprint. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan