The New York Racing Association is expanding the Saratoga Race Course season for the second straight year.
Announcing its 2025 schedule Tuesday, NYRA says the track will now open for five days in June to host the Belmont Stakes beginning June 4th. That’s an additional racing day from the 2024 running of the third leg of the Triple Crown.
The Belmont will again be run upstate June 7th as Belmont Park undergoes a half-a-billion-dollar renovation.
In addition, The Spa will open for a four-day racing festival July 3rd around Independence Day — another event typically held at Belmont Park.
NYRA Communications Vice President Pat McKenna says that festival will be five days this time around before the regular 40-day meet starts July 10th.
“The July 4th festival is typically held at Belmont, last year it was held at Aqueduct due to the construction at Belmont. And because of that, as well as a function of the calendar in 2025 Labor Day falls as early as it can on September 1st, we made the decision to shift that to Saratoga,” said McKenna.
McKenna said the changes are temporary.
“As we progress on a $455 million renovation of Belmont Park, that project requires certain adjustments to the typical, traditional calendar. These are certainly temporary adjustments. Obviously Belmont Park will always be the home of the Belmont Stakes and that July 4th festival will certainly be held at Belmont moving forward,” said McKenna.
City Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran understands why NYRA chose to move the July 4th festival to Saratoga Springs, but he has concerns about more racing.
“I remember back to the four-week meet. I think there’s—we could see last year, just with the impact of Belmont, there was dilution in our product to a certain extent and fatigue applied to our community, our first responders. And, I think, at the end of the day while it’s excellent for us to get that exposure, over the long-term it’s probably going to show itself to be a little too much,” said Moran.
Mayor John Safford said he was surprised by the announcement, but is ready to make additional days of racing run smoothly.
“Obviously we knew that they were anticipating some things but they did not, they don’t check with me. So, the first I heard of it was this morning. I mean, we have to be very glad NYRA is here for a lot of reasons and want to work with them, but there are some legitimate concerns especially with people renting homes and things of that nature, it makes things much more complicated,” said Safford.
Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce President Todd Shimkus expected the changes.
“I believe what we did with Belmont on Broadway and the Belmont Stakes Festival here in Saratoga last year beyond making history, we demonstrated to the world that a little city of 28,000 people, Saratoga Springs, is a major events destination and you just can’t underestimate the value of that message getting out to an audience that we’ve never had access to before as a result of the fact that the Belmont Stakes, a Triple Crown race, was run in our community,” said Shimkus.
Shimkus says the chamber will be making some changes to the free Belmont on Broadway concert.
“Last year we had three bands and we started at 6. And what’s going to happen in 2025 is we’re looking at one or two bands and we’re going to start at 7. The reason to do that is that gives the restaurants in particular one more turn before everybody heads to the concert. It also gives the retailers that are on Broadway and downtown a chance to maybe stay open until 7 as the crowd starts to arrive on Broadway,” said Shimkus.
Racing continues through Labor Day.
