Belmont Park is again: inside New York’s $555m guess on horse racing
Henry Miller stood on the trackside apron of the brand new Belmont Park on Friday attempting to resolve what he considered the place.
“It has to develop on me,” mentioned Miller, a 59-year-old retired sanitation employee from Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood who has been coming to New York racetracks for 47 years. “For me, it’s an excessive amount of concrete. I don’t assume it’s as pleasant because the previous Belmont.”
He missed the acquainted bushes and the ivy-covered brick facades. He missed the previous bar and grandstand. Most of all, he was nonetheless mourning Aqueduct, the ramshackle Queens racetrack that shuttered in June as a part of the $555m experiment that has made the reimagined Belmont doable.
“That broke my coronary heart,” Miller mentioned.
For the primary time in additional than three years, horses had been racing at Belmont Park on Friday, however virtually all the things surrounding them had modified.
The cavernous grandstand that when loomed over the house straight is gone, changed by a smaller, glass-fronted constructing designed for a sport that now not expects tens of hundreds of individuals to show up on an peculiar afternoon. The previous Belmont had a footprint of roughly 1.25m sq ft; its five-storey alternative is lower than 1 / 4 of the dimensions, at about 300,000 sq ft. Even Big Sandy, the famously deep mile-and-a-half dust monitor that grew to become synonymous with the grueling final leg of US horse racing’s Triple Crown, has been relegated to the previous, recreated with the identical soil composition used at Saratoga with the end line repositioned for an extended stretch run. There are 4 rebuilt racing surfaces in all, a paddock 50% bigger than its predecessor and roughly 20 acres of newly accessible inexperienced area.
Inside, the aesthetic is nearly aggressively fashionable: vivid white partitions, gleaming flooring and lengthy, clear expanses that really feel extra THX 1138 than old-school racetrack. As one Fox Sports manufacturing assistant may very well be overheard describing it: “It appears to be like form of like an airport, nevertheless it’s lovely.”
It is a dramatic break with the Belmont that has stood on this nook of suburban Long Island in some kind since 1905, a bit of New York cultural furnishings proper alongside the Queens-Nassau County line whose hulking construction and sweeping turns had been recognizable even to individuals who by no means studied a racing kind. Secretariat surged into history by 31 lengths right here, generations earlier than American Pharoah ended a 37-year Triple Crown hoodoo. The monitor appeared on display all over the place from multiple Woody Allen films to a Frederick Wiseman documentary to Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi.
What opened on Friday was not merely a renovated sports activities venue, however New York’s half-billion greenback wager that horse racing can shrink its bodily footprint, improve the expertise and discover sufficient new clients to outlive a playing panorama that has largely moved past it.
The $455m state mortgage that financed the reconstruction was accompanied by one other $100m from the New York Racing Association, the nonprofit that operates Belmont, Saratoga and, till not too long ago, Aqueduct. The state cash is to be repaid from NYRA’s lower of slot-machine earnings from the Resorts World on line casino, which sits alongside the now-closed Aqueduct property, solely 9 miles from Belmont.
Bottom: Horses are led out for the fourth race.
Photograph: Pamela Smith/The GuardianAt a ribbon-cutting on Friday morning, New York governor Kathy Hochul referred to as the mortgage a calculated asset placement in the way forward for the trade.
“Three and a half years in the past, we made a giant guess on Belmont,” Hochul mentioned. “We made the guess as a result of we noticed the big financial potential.”
She described the aim as an “global racing hub” that might double as a live performance and leisure area – “a flexible venue” meant not just for racing followers however “the whole neighborhood”.
The cut price got here with important penalties. NYRA consolidated its downstate operation at Belmont, bringing an finish to 132 years of racing at Aqueduct and leaving New York City with out a thoroughbred racetrack for the primary time because the 1821 opening of Union Course in what’s now Woodhaven, Queens. The roughly 100-acre Aqueduct web site is being returned to the state for redevelopment, with Hochul’s administration planning for a mixed-use redevelopment of housing, retail, neighborhood services and open area.
Belmont itself has been reconceived round a blunt actuality. The previous construction, which re-opened in 1968 after a five-year rebuild, was engineered for crowds of a scale that hardly ever materialized exterior the largest racing days – just like the 120,139 who turned out for Smarty Jones’ doomed Triple Crown bid in 2004. Its alternative will maintain roughly 10,000 folks inside, whereas entry to the infield and non permanent seating will enable the property to accommodate round 50,000 for the Belmont Stakes.
The new facility will stage a 46-day fall meet that includes 72 stakes price $17.7m, earlier than the Belmont Stakes returns subsequent yr and the Breeders’ Cup comes again to New York for the primary time since 2005.
Fittingly for a venue being pitched as an global racing vacation spot, the primary winner on the new Belmont on Friday afternoon was a UK product. Lisa Joy, a British homebred owned by Andrew Rosen, gained the opening mile-and-a-quarter maiden on the inside turf for Hall of Fame coach Shug McGaughey and jockey Antonio Fresu.
McGaughey, a stalwart of New York racing who denied Sunday Silence the Triple Crown when Easy Goer won the Belmont in 1989, was enthusiastic in regards to the rebuilt monitor whilst he acknowledged the place was nonetheless discovering its ft.
“I believe it’s a gorgeous place,” he mentioned. “It’s completely different than what I anticipated. We simply have to get the kinks out and get the folks in it and it’ll be actually particular. I believe it’s going to be nice when all the things will get settled in.”
For longtime patrons, getting used to the brand new Belmont could take just a little longer.
Kathie Riccobono, a 74-year-old from close by Garden City who has been coming to Belmont for half a century, was impressed by what she noticed however instantly recognized what she missed in regards to the previous place.
“The crowds,” she mentioned.
Bottom: Racehorse Osmosis is walked earlier than the primary race.
Photograph: Pamela Smith/The Guardian“It’s a giant change,” Riccobono mentioned. “Change is nice, however you’re not going to have the previous Belmont like we used to. The previous folks, there’s not many people left. And the brand new group don’t know nothing about horses.”
Attendance was capped at 6,000 throughout opening weekend and can drop to 4,000 starting subsequent week whereas building continues. Right now solely the primary two flooring are open, whereas the remaining three are anticipated to be completed early subsequent yr.
The transformation is probably most evident in the best way spectators are distributed. General-admission clients occupy the primary ground, apron and yard, with bars and meals concessions together with Big Red’s, Silks, Homestretch Market and the Trackside Lounge accessible with out reservations or cowl prices. One ground up, the Turf Club, Overlook and Stretch View require reservations. Above them, nonetheless beneath building, would be the suites and bins.
The costs rise accordingly. A field seat runs between $55 and $75, whereas the Overlook and Stretch View can value $100 to $150 extra per individual and the Turf Club prices $75 per individual, climbing to $150 for its premium menu.
General admission, a minimum of, stays low-cost. After opening weekend, tickets will value $7 prematurely or $10 on the gate, the identical value NYRA prices at Saratoga. Yet some regulars say the price of admission tells solely a part of the story.
Miller was amongst them. Parking, he famous, prices $20. Factor in different prices like admission and a program and the economics start to look completely different.
“You’re spending $35 or $45 earlier than you even make a wager. It’s not going to get folks within the doorways when you’ve the opposite possibility to remain residence and gamble or guess on the app,” Miller mentioned. “That $45 is happening a parlay.”
The identical pressure will be discovered within the new yard. NYRA has promoted an area roughly 5 instances bigger than its predecessor as a communal gathering place, however coolers and outdoors drinks are prohibited, eliminating a longstanding means for households and teams to maintain the price of a day on the races down.
For anybody who hung out at Aqueduct, the excellence is critical. Miller referred to as it “the poor man’s monitor”.
“I don’t know if there’s one other racetrack that you could possibly take public transportation to, on to the monitor,” he mentioned. “Everybody is aware of everybody. The jockeys are even nearer with the fellows. It’s extra interplay.”
Belmont, he mentioned, had at all times been “extra status or boutique”. And he had seen the identical tendencies surfacing elsewhere.
“I used to be down at Gulfstream, I used to be at Churchill [Downs]. They’re all gearing in the direction of this boutique form of factor,” Miller mentioned. “The common horseplayer, the nickel-and-dime man who retains the trade going goes to get squeezed out.”
Aqueduct was no one’s concept of luxurious. By its remaining years it was dim, dilapidated and more and more swallowed by the on line casino subsequent door. But entrance was free, the A practice stopped exterior and patrons may convey their very own meals. Regulars carved out territories round specific tables, simulcast displays and betting home windows.
Bottom: A fan wears a horse racing themed bowtie.
Photograph: Pamela Smith/The GuardianThat accessibility helped make Aqueduct an more and more uncommon factor in American sport: a third place the place anybody may stroll in off the road and keep the entire day with out spending very a lot. Its democratic crowd mirrored the borough that surrounded it: a racially and economically blended assortment of horseplayers, households, retirees and obsessive handicappers. Belmont stays accessible by public transport, with the Long Island Rail Road stopping on the neighboring Elmont-UBS Arena station. But Aqueduct’s location straight on the A line gave it a unique relationship with town.
On Aqueduct’s remaining day in June, 6,866 folks got here for what felt alternately like a celebration and a wake. Many posed for pictures in entrance of the Secretariat mural or pocketed small keepsakes. Others questioned aloud whether or not they would make the journey east to Belmont in any respect.
“Probably not,” one retired horseman turned Aqueduct common, Robert Bourget, mentioned that afternoon when requested whether or not he would go. “They’ll cost an excessive amount of to get in.”
Not everybody on Friday regarded the transformation with suspicion. Joseph Gillespie, a 60-year-old retiree from Levittown who was on the monitor together with his spouse, Eileen, has been coming to Belmont for 35 years and mentioned he expects to go to much more typically now that he’s retired. He referred to as the brand new constructing “very good” and was unbothered by what he had seen of the costs: even a $12 beer, he reckoned, “just isn’t so unhealthy as of late”.
Gillespie additionally understood instantly what NYRA gave the impression to be aiming for.
“I believe they’re attempting to make this like a Keeneland vacation spot kind of factor,” he mentioned. “People get fancied up. Hopefully you don’t get the riff-raff. Not that there’s something incorrect with that. Hopefully it thrives.”
The query extends nicely past New York. More than 40 American racetracks have closed since 2000 as the game has contended with an growing old fanbase, declining attendance and a playing market that bears little resemblance to the one which made horse racing a mass spectator sport.
Another signpost of the contraction arrived this yr when FanDuel TV, the previous TVG and for greater than twenty years a central hub of American racing protection, introduced plans to wind down its television operation. The community, which reaches about 30m households, is slicing its workforce by roughly 60% and plans to get rid of studio manufacturing by the top of the yr earlier than ceasing linear racing broadcasts altogether in 2027. FanDuel’s wagering platforms, in the meantime, will proceed working.
For a lot of the twentieth century, the racetrack possessed an infinite home edge: in lots of locations it was one of many solely authorized methods to gamble. That monopoly started disappearing with the unfold of lotteries, casinos and off-track betting and has been obliterated within the cell sports-betting period. Americans wagered almost $167bn on sports activities in 2025, in contrast with roughly $11bn on US horse racing.
Bottom: A racehorse is washed after the third race.
Photograph: Pamela Smith/The GuardianThe irony is that Belmont’s rebirth comes as horse racing itself loses floor, however which may be exactly the purpose. Across American sports activities, venues have more and more become anchors for year-round economies of eating places, outlets, lodges and leisure moderately than self-contained locations. Belmont now has its personal model: a $455m racetrack solely footsteps from an expanding luxury shopping village and UBS Arena, the 17,255-seat residence of the NHL’s New York Islanders.
Miller didn’t want the statistics to grasp racing’s demographic drawback.
“I’m 59 now, so like my cousins say, ‘I’m within the departure lounge now. I’m not in arrivals,’” he mentioned. “So you bought to get the youthful folks to get extra concerned.”
He may bear in mind when Aqueduct on an in any other case unremarkable Wednesday or Thursday would possibly appeal to 15,000 or 20,000 folks. The Meadowlands on a Friday or Saturday night time may very well be the place to be even for individuals who had little curiosity in playing. That, he believed, was the problem dealing with the brand new Belmont in an age when the on line casino is already sitting in everybody’s pocket.
“You obtained to present an individual a motive to come back,” he mentioned.
Some of the arrivals Miller was speaking about had been plainly seen on Friday for a re-opening that was meant as a showcase. On a sun-splashed 83F (28C) afternoon beneath a cloudless sky, a sold-out crowd of about 6,000 stuffed the partially accomplished grounds, nation singer Dierks Bentley carried out an abbreviated set and the nine-race card was constructed across the $1m Jockey Club Gold Cup and one in every of globe’s most well-known equine athletes at present.
Forever Young arrived at Belmont as a bonafide globetrotting star. Friday marked the five-year-old Japanese horse’s sixteenth profession begin at his tenth completely different monitor. The strapping bay stallion had gained 11 of his first 15 races, together with the 2025 Breeders’ Cup Classic, by no means ending exterior the highest three.
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His following had traveled too. Hordes of youthful followers crowded the paddock and apron for a glimpse of him, together with many groups dressed in elaborate anime-inspired cosplay – a strikingly completely different picture of the racing fanatic from the growing old horseplayers the game has spent years of hand-wringing about dropping. They weren’t the standard railbirds Miller remembered from Aqueduct, however neither had been they detached newcomers being coaxed into caring in regards to the sport with trackside live shows and meals vouchers.
Forever Young duly provided the reborn Belmont with its first marquee second, sitting comfortably behind the early tempo earlier than sweeping to the lead across the far flip, successful by three and 1 / 4 lengths and pushing his profession earnings past $32m. Even that was apparently not sufficient to fulfill his famously demanding coach. Yoshito Yahagi pronounced himself solely “50% glad”, estimating Forever Young at about 80% health earlier than his try subsequent month to turn out to be solely the second horse after Tiznow to win back-to-back Breeders’ Cup Classics.
“I believe I’ll by no means see once more a horse like this in my life and my profession,” Yahagi mentioned by means of a translator.
The mania round Forever Young supplied one glimpse of the viewers NYRA hopes to domesticate, however attracting a brand new technology of followers is just one a part of its try to remake Belmont for a altering sport. The bodily plant itself has been designed round year-round use. Alongside the standard mile-and-a-half dust monitor and two rebuilt turf programs is a brand new one-mile Tapeta oval that can turn out to be the unique racing floor in the course of the winter, permitting NYRA to consolidate a calendar as soon as divided between Belmont and Aqueduct onto a single property.
Bottom: Racehorses compete within the fourth race.
Photograph: Pamela Smith/The GuardianEven the Belmont Stakes itself could not return unchanged. NYRA is considering shortening its signature race from its conventional mile-and-a-half distance to a mile and 1 / 4, with NYRA CEO Dave O’Rourke arguing that the historic distance now not displays what fashionable breeders are producing.
Taken collectively, the modifications make Belmont an unusually literal experiment in the way forward for American horse racing. The previous mannequin was a huge betting corridor that occurred to encompass a racetrack. The new one is smaller, brighter and extra versatile: half racetrack, half leisure complicated, with the largest crowds concentrated right into a handful of vacation spot occasions and premium areas out there for patrons keen to pay for them.
There had been indicators Friday that the experiment would possibly work. Riccobono, for all her nostalgia for the previous Belmont, was struck by the temper round her.
“Everybody is cheerful,” she mentioned. “And that’s the way it at all times is at Belmont.”
After 50 years of coming right here, she was much less fascinated about delivering a verdict than appreciating the truth that she had made it to a different incarnation of the place.
“I really feel fortunate to be alive,” she mentioned. “I really feel fortunate I’m right here.”
For one afternoon, a minimum of, the components clicked. Six thousand folks stuffed the grounds. Families unfold throughout the brand new yard, previous horseplayers stuffed the tables and benches at trackside and toiled over their types (or tablets), whereas youthful followers celebrated the Japanese stallion who had made his title across the globe. Whether the identical power will be reproduced on an peculiar Thursday in November – with out a $32m international celebrity, a live performance or the novelty of seeing the place for the primary time – would be the extra consequential check.
