Saratoga 2026: Meet concludes with record $905 million in all-sources handle
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – An elongated summer blessed mostly by good weather and good racing led to good business for the New York Racing Association at Saratoga.
All-sources handle for the 45-day meet was $905,425,541, an average daily handle of $20,120,568, and a 3.5 percent increase over last year. It will go down as a record handle for Saratoga, which makes sense since the 45 days are the most that have been held at a single meeting. There were 46 cards of racing scheduled from July 3-Sept. 7, but the July 29 card was canceled due to rain.
Total ontrack handle was $149,453,752. Paid attendance was 1,045,373.
Last summer, NYRA raced 44 days, but, for statistical purposes, the cards of July 3-6 were not considered part of the regular 40-day meet. But when you add those four racing days in there were 464 races run over the same two-month period, the same number as were held this summer. All-sources handle for the 44 days run in 2025 was $874,763,951, for an average daily handle of $19,880,998.
NYRA’s handle figures were strong despite an approximate 29 percent drop in play from computer assisted wagering (CAW) players, according to NYRA. Official CAW figures were not available Monday, but through Aug. 29, CAW play was down $40 million.
Earlier this year, NYRA put up guardrails that limited CAW players’ ability to place bets late in the wagering cycle.
“In an environment with strong content we have seen an uptick in the retail cohort, an impressive one actually that outpaced what even our most optimistic projections would have been in the timeline,” said Dave O’Rourke, NYRA’s president and CEO. “This is something that could potentially take years to right size or get back on track, but improving the wagering experience has shown some meaningful positive green shoots here.”
Field size for the 2026 meet was 7.92 horses per race, with the average field size for turf races 8.66, or 1.33 higher than on dirt. There were 206 turf races run this summer, with only 17 rained off to dirt. There were 176 turf races run and 33 scheduled turf races taken off the turf during the comparable period of 2025.
“I think it went really well,” O’Rourke said of the meet. “I think the weather cooperated, the racing was great. I think a lot of the things the events team is doing with the families and fans went well. We didn’t try anything dramatic, except for the length of the meet. Hats off to the operations team for keeping this humming and working on Belmont at the same time.”
The extra time spent in Saratoga the last two summers is a direct result of the renovation of Belmont Park, which also forced the Belmont Stakes to be run in Saratoga the last three years. Belmont Park, despite not being completely done, is set to open Sept. 18.
“Now it’s about reinventing Belmont, see what we’ve got down there. We got some beautiful racetracks down there,” O’Rourke said. “What’s the best product we can put out there. The brand of Saratoga is powerful. Now we get to basically re-energize the Belmont one.”
O’Rourke said that NYRA is expected to go back to the traditional 40-day Saratoga meet, run over eight weeks, in 2027. However, beyond next year, NYRA could look to spread the 40 days out over 10 weeks, which would allow for two more weekends of business. This summer, racing was conducted three days per week during the first week and then four days per week for the next four weeks before returning to the typical five-day race week over the last five weeks.
“In terms of four-day weeks, the feedback was really positive from the fans and the town and the horsemen,” O’Rourke said. “I think that is something to look at, but on the other side of that equation when you have to run 200 days a year that also is a factor, how do you actually do that?
“For now, it’s 40 days up here,” O’Rourke added. “Could it evolve in the future? Sure. But there’s a lot of conversations between now and then. Right now, everything I’ve seen in draft form 40 days, 8 weeks.”
From a horse safety perspective, it was a good meet. There were no official racing-related fatalities. However, Marvelous Madison suffered an injury when running fifth in the Yaddo Stakes on Aug. 30, but because she was euthanized more than 72 hours after the race, the fatality isn’t considered racing-related, per state guidelines. From July 3-Sept. 7, there were four training-related fatalities, though two of them were cardiac episodes that happened either in a routine gallop or while warming up.
It was a smashing summer for jockey Manny Franco, who won his first Saratoga riding title with 73 victories, the most ever by a rider here though he had the benefit of five more days than Ramon Dominguez who won 68 races in 2012. Franco won 11 stakes, four of which were Grade 1s – the Travers, Alabama, Christophe Clement, and Hopeful.
Flavien Prat finished second with 67 wins, followed by Jose Ortiz with 66. Prat and Ortiz spent most of the final week of the Saratoga meet riding at Kentucky Downs.
Chad Brown won his ninth Saratoga trainer’s title, finishing the meet with 42 wins, two more than Linda Rice. Brown’s highlights included an 11th Grade 1 Diana with Kathynmarissa and other Grade 1 victories including the Alabama (My Guns Loaded), Ballerina (Ways and Means), and Personal Ensign (Fully Subscribed).
“This is not routine,” Brown said. “All the credit really goes to my team, my clients, the jockeys, and the horses. I’m the conductor. I feel very appreciative for my name to be on it, but I’m not confused about my minimal role on accomplishing it. The owners supply the horses, the horses show up, and with my team they’re cared for at the highest level.”
Brown’s primary client, Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables, won its eight Saratoga owner’s title with 17 wins, two more than Rice.
A few new stars were born this meet with the lightly-raced Leading Change winning the Travers in just his third career start, My Guns Loaded winning the Alabama in just her third lifetime start, the 2-year-old filly Summer Starlet dominating the Grade 1 Spinaway, and the 2-year-old colt U. S. S. Valor winning his maiden by 13 1/4 lengths, an exciting prospect for the fall.
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