All-sources single-race betting on the Belmont Stakes on Saturday at Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York was up 5 percent compared to betting in the same pools last year, according to charts of the races.
Betting in the win, place, show, exacta, trifecta, and superfecta pools this year was $53.77 million, according to the chart of the race, compared to $51.19 million last year. This year’s Belmont had eight horses, while last year’s Belmont, also at Saratoga, had a nine-horse field.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The fresh 3-year-old - and now undoubtedly the best 3-year-old - won the Belmont Stakes.
Sovereignty, who beat Journalism by 1 1/2 lengths in the Kentucky Derby five weeks ago at Churchill Downs, was purposely held out of the Preakness two weeks later by his connections to point to the Belmont. Sovereignty delivered a performance on Saturday at Saratoga that was even better than in Louisville, running away from Journalism, the Preakness winner, in the final furlong, to win the Belmont by three decisive lengths.
Curlin ran with distinction through the three Triple Crown races in 2007. He finished third in the Kentucky Derby in just his fourth career start, won the Preakness Stakes, and finished a hard-fought second to fellow champion Rags to Riches in the Belmont Stakes. On Saturday, his son Journalism, who has helped cement Curlin’s reputation as one of the most consistent active sires in the American classics, will become the only member of his crop to start in all three 2025 Triple Crown races.
One June 7, 2020, the Triple Crown series had not yet begun due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Authentic had finished second in his first Grade 1 start, the Santa Anita Derby. Fate dictated that his emergence on the Triple Crown scene would come late, and it worked out for him. Authentic won the Haskell Invitational in July and the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby – the second leg of the Triple Crown that year following the June 20 Belmont Stakes – before finishing second in the Preakness Stakes and winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic to earn Horse of the Year honors.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Fierceness and White Abarrio will line up side by side for their showdown in Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Metropolitan Handicap at Saratoga.
Fierceness, the 2024 Travers winner and 2-year-old champion of 2023, drew the rail in the Met Mile, which drew a field of only five, but four of those horses have combined to win 13 of their last 16 starts.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Journalism had always struck his trainer Michael McCarthy as a horse that could handle the three-races-in-five-weeks rigors of the Triple Crown. On Sunday, after watching him put in a terrific workout over Saratoga’s main track, McCarthy will give Journalism the chance to prove him right.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The five-day Belmont Stakes Festival really kicks into high gear on Friday with the first of two consecutive 14-race programs at Saratoga. The card includes six graded stakes topped by the Grade 1 Acorn for 3-year-old fillies that features the local debut of the undefeated Kentucky Oaks winner Good Cheer.
First post on Friday is 11:40 a.m.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – When it comes to the Triple Crown, owner Mike Repole appears to have a case of FOMO.
Fear not, Repole does not plan on missing out on this year’s Belmont Stakes. He has looked deep down trainer Todd Pletcher’s bench of 3-year-olds and has plucked Uncaged from it to run in the $2 million Belmont Stakes on June 7.
