Saratoga Could Host Extra Weekend of Racing in 2025

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – There could be another weekend of racing at Saratoga Race Course in 2025, if a plan being considered by the New York Racing Association is adopted.

Although the racing would take place at the historic upstate facility, NYRA officials said it technically would not be an expansion of the 40-day Saratoga season. If the proposal is approved, the Fourth of July weekend–July 4 falls on a Friday–at Saratoga would be the final days of the Belmont of Aqueduct meet. The Saratoga season would begin on Thursday, July 10.

“That requires Board approval. That requires state approval,” NYRA president David O'Rourke said. “You're just asking me, what's on the table, what we're thinking about? That's one of the things we're thinking about.”

The changes, most notably moving the GI Belmont Stakes to Saratoga this year and in 2025, is due to the reconstruction of Belmont Park.

For the second consecutive year, the GI Belmont Stakes will be held in 2025 at Saratoga on June 7. This year, it was surrounded by a four-day festival.

NYRA spokesperson Patrick McKenna said that, under the proposal being discussed, racing would return to Aqueduct for three more weeks and then move back to Saratoga Race Course for the final weekend of the Belmont at Aqueduct meet.

McKenna said that if such a plan is approved to finish the Belmont at Aqueduct meet at Saratoga in 2025, it may be for just one year pending the re-opening of Belmont Park.

Although there has been a great deal of speculation in Saratoga this summer that NYRA would stay upstate after the 2025 Belmont Stakes, O'Rourke said that would not happen. However, O'Rourke noted that the field for the GI Belmont Derby this year might have been negatively affected because more of the horse population was already upstate due to the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Festival. Closing the Belmont at Aqueduct meet at Saratoga in 2025 and running the Belmont Derby there might mitigate that problem.

“We pretty much have to go back after the Belmont for access to the grass,” O'Rourke said. “There is one race that might be interesting to move up here. That would be the Belmont Derby, because that's the last weekend down there.

“What we saw when we went back from a racing aspect is it was great to get a lot of divisions, specific divisions, access to the turf, but some of the higher-quality horses were waiting for Saratoga and might have impacted the Belmont Derby a little bit. The Belmont Derby belongs to Belmont Park, but in the near term, that might be one thing, but that's a far cry from not going back down south.”