LEXINGTON, Ky. – Spectators will be allowed at this year’s rescheduled Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5 at Churchill Downs in Louisville under protocols that will limit attendance and encourage customers to minimize their movement throughout the facility, officials of Churchill Downs said on Thursday morning.

ELMONT, N.Y. – After Tiz the Law drew away from his nine rivals to win Saturday’s $1 million Belmont Stakes by 3 3/4 lengths, trainer Barclay Tagg and his assistant Robin Smullen quietly left the box seats from where they had watched and walked down to the winner’s circle.

There were no high-fives or fist bumps, just a few congratulatory pats on the back.

Handle on this year’s Belmont Stakes was nowhere near normal, but there was nothing nearly normal about this year’s Belmont Stakes.

Bill Mott reached a major milestone Saturday when Moon Over Miami became the 5,000th winner of his Hall of Fame training career when he captured the third race at Churchill Downs.

Mott, who was at Belmont Park to saddle Modernist later in the afternoon for the Belmont Stakes, was represented as usual at Churchill by his longtime assistant Kenny McCarthy.

Daily Racing Form New York handicapper Mike Beer and TimeformUS handicapper David Aragona provide their selections, analysis, and suggested wagers for the 2020 Belmont Stakes card on June 20, 2020, at Belmont Park.

Schedule

Top 4 picks for each race on the card from both Beer and Aragona (Posted by 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 18)

Analysis of the top 10 races on the card, with Beer and Aragona each providing analysis of five races and offering commentary on their colleague’s analysis. (Posted by 5 p.m. ET on Friday, June 19)

CHICAGO – Two days after both parties said they had the framework in place to sign an agreement that would permit a 2020 race meet, Arlington and the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association still had failed to come to terms late Friday ​on a contract governing the 2020 and 2021 racing seasons.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Jack Knowlton and a few dozen friends and family will be in upstate New York on Saturday, eating meatballs and Italian food at Pennell’s, a popular restaurant a few furlongs from Saratoga Race Course. In Southern California, Lew Titterton will be with family, cracking open lobsters he will have flown in from the East Coast.

A horse that wins the Haskell, the Kentucky Derby, and the Breeders’ Cup Classic this year will be awarded a $1 million bonus by Monmouth Park, the host track of the Haskell, Monmouth announced Thursday.

The California Horse Racing Board adopted a rule on Thursday that will greatly restrict the use of the whip. The new rule may begin as soon as October.

At a marathon teleconference that lasted more than six hours, the racing board enacted the new whip rule that was first discussed in early 2019. The rule was the subject of a lengthy debate on Thursday and was approved by a vote of 4-2.

Charlatan, who has crossed the finish line first in all three of his starts including a division of the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby, will not make the Belmont Stakes on June 20 or the Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5 due to an ankle injury, trainer Bob Baffert said Saturday.

“He came up with an issue,” Baffert said. “We saw that he had a tiny aggravation there, I wouldn’t call it a chip. They’ll clear it up. It will take him out of the Derby picture. He’ll be back by the fall.”