A shortened Belmont fall meet sees strong handle

Average daily handle for the 27-day Belmont Park fall meet, which concluded Sunday, was $9,923,813, a 33.6 percent increase over last year’s daily average of $7,430,533, the New York Racing Association announced Monday.

Last year’s Belmont meet was scheduled for 38 days but one entire card was canceled and only one race was run on the closing-day program.

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Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, NYRA shortened this year’s fall meet to 27 days, instituting a 10-day break between Saratoga and Belmont and conducting racing just four days a week instead of five as had been the case last fall.

All-sources handle for this year’s meet was $267,942,961, down just 2.5 percent from last year’s all-sources total of $274,929,718. There were 267 races run this year compared with 324 run last fall. Belmont ran 118 races on turf this year with 24 taken off due to poor weather. Last year, there were 158 races run on turf with 14 taken off.

Average field size for the 2020 meet was 7.92 horses per race, compared to 7.34 in 2019. The average field size on dirt was 7.23, up from 6.63 in 2019, while the average field size on turf was 8.29, compared to 8.08 in 2019.

This year’s Jockey Club Gold Cup Day card handled $19,534,830, the highest single-day handle for a Belmont fall race date since September 2014.

On the track, jockey Jose Ortiz won his first Belmont riding title with 40 wins, including a sweep of the two-closing day stakes on the program. Jose Lezcano finished second with 28 wins followed by Luis Saez (23), Junior Alvarado (22), Irad Ortiz Jr. (21) and Manny Franco (21).

Chad Brown led all trainers with 22 wins, the ninth straight Belmont Park fall meet title he either won outright or shared. Christophe Clement was second with 16 wins followed by Todd Pletcher (15), Mike Maker (14) and Bill Mott (10).

Seth Klarman’s Klaravich Stables was the leading owner with 13 winners followed by Mike Repole (7), Kirk Wycoff’s Three Diamonds Farm (6) and the Noda Brothers (5).

Racing on this circuit resumes Friday at Aqueduct.