Why is the Belmont Stakes Moving to Saratoga?

Key Takeaways:

• Because of the ongoing construction work at Belmont Park, the 2025 Belmont Stakes will be held at Saratoga Race Course, although it will likely return to Belmont Park in 2026.
• This move to Saratoga also causes the race to be shortened from 1½ miles to 1¼, matching the Kentucky Derby’s length.
• This year, the 2025 Belmont Stakes Racing Festival has expanded to five days and includes several major races with adjusted distances due to Saratoga’s layout.

The 2025 Belmont Stakes happens Saturday, June 7. Though the Belmont is traditionally run at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, the traditional home track is still under construction. This means, just like 2024, the race will be run upstate at Saratoga Race Course.

The upstate location isn’t the only difference for the race. Normally, at Belmont Park, the third jewel of the Triple Crown is run at 1 ½ miles: one full lap around “Big Sandy.” However, trying to run 1 ½ miles at Saratoga Race Course would require putting the starting gate on a turn, giving horses on the outside a significant disadvantage. So, the Belmont will be run at 1 ¼ miles, the same distance as the Kentucky Derby.

Though, some things remain the same. Belmont Stakes day is still the cornerstone of one of the best weekends of racing in the world. Even so, there is one exciting new difference: the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival extends to five days in 2025 instead of its previous four. The festival dates run from Wednesday, June 4, through Sunday, June 8. Then, racing will return to Aqueduct for a few more weeks until it returns for the traditional New York Racing Association summer meet at Saratoga Race Course, from July 3 through September 1.

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Belmont Park Renovation

In March of 2024, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the timeline for the current renovation project. The $455 million project is being funded by a loan from the state of New York to the NYRA, approved in the budget for the 2024 fiscal year.

Alongside the timeline, the NYRA unveiled plans for what the grandstand is expected to look like when the project is finished. The new grandstand will feature a smaller footprint, 275,000 square feet, instead of 1.25 million square feet of the old one. The smaller building will feature the amenities of a modern horse racing grandstand, while also opening up significantly more green space for people to enjoy on race days.

Demolition of the grandstand began the next month, with construction of the new one underway in 2025 and continuing into 2026. According to that timeline released in March, Belmont Park will be under construction through 2026. Though the new Belmont Park grandstand is not expected to be fully open until September 2026, horse racing is expected to return to the track in June 2026, in time to run the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at its traditional Long Island home.

Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course

During the massive renovation of Belmont Park, most of the thoroughbred racing that would otherwise happen there has been conducted at Aqueduct in Queens, under a meet called Belmont at the Big A. The New York Racing Association has decided to put a special touch on the third leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown: instead of keeping it at Aqueduct, it will happen at Saratoga Race Course.

This is not the first time fans have seen the final race of horse racing’s Triple Crown shifting to another track due to construction. Between 1963 and 1967, the Belmont Stakes was contested at Aqueduct during a previous grandstand rebuilding project. However, this will be the first time that the Belmont Stakes will be run outside the New York City metropolitan area.

Change in Distance

The Belmont Stakes will be run at Saratoga Race Course three weeks after the Preakness, its usual place on the racing calendar. The biggest difference in the third Triple Crown event, other than the location, will be the change in distance of the Belmont Stakes. The 2024 Belmont Stakes, as well as the 2025 edition, will be contested at 1 ¼ miles, the same distance as the Kentucky Derby.

The change in distance will not be the first in the history of the race. It has been run at distances ranging from 1 ⅛ miles to 1 ⅝ miles. However, its traditional distance is 1 ½ miles. The race has covered that distance from 1874-89 as well as from 1926 through 2023, except for 2020 when it was run at 1 ⅛ miles due to the COVID-era racing schedule changes.

The dirt track at Saratoga cannot handle a race at 1 ½ miles, however. To run that distance, the starting gate would have to be put on the turn. So, the final jewel of the Triple Crown is run at 1 ¼ miles at Saratoga, the same distance as the Derby. That is the distance at which Dornoch won the race in 2024, and what Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty, Preakness Stakes winner Journalism, and all who face them will cover in 2025 on Belmont Stakes day.

Belmont Stakes Racing Festival

Due to the Saratoga track’s differing size, the 2025 Belmont Stakes is not the only race that will have to change distance or configuration while the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival visits Saratoga Springs. For example, one-mile dirt races like the Met Mile (G1) and the Acorn (G1) will be run out of the mile chute instead of at a true one-turn mile, as they are at Belmont Park. Some of the turf races will change distance as well. The Manhattan (G1) will shorten to 1 3/16 miles instead of 1 ¼, and the Jaipur (G1) will cover 5 ½ furlongs on the turf instead of a flat six.

Even with the changes in distance, however, the purses will remain strong, and the prestige of the meet is enough to draw many of the best horses to compete at Saratoga Race Course. With that being the case, and the courses and distances remaining similar, the American Graded Stakes Committee is treating the Belmont Stakes and all of the other races at the festival as continuations of the races at Belmont Park. Thus, the races have kept their grades during this visit to the Spa.

The Belmont Stakes Racing Festival used to run from Thursday through Sunday, but Wednesday racing has been added for 2025. The jumpers shine first, with the Beverly R. Steinman, a Grade 1 on the hurdle. The rest of the day features a full array of New York-bred stakes races, including both dirt and turf events for sophomores as well as older horses.

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