Belmont S.

Grammy Award-winning artist Diplo will headline the 2023 Belmont Racing Festival with a special performance prior to the Belmont S. The New York Racing Association, Inc. announced Friday. Highlighted by the 155th running of the GI Belmont S.--the final leg of horse racing's Triple Crown--the Belmont Racing Festival is a three-day celebration of racing and entertainment beginning Thurs., June 8 and culminating Sat., June 10.

Donegal Racing and Repole Stable's Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo--Callingmissbrown, by Pulpit), last seen validating favoritism with a three-length victory in the GI Belmont S. presented by NYRA Bets June 11, has been retired from racing and will enter stud for the 2023 breeding season at Spendthrift Farm. He will command a fee of $20,000, stands and nurses terms. Bred in Kentucky by the Lyster family's Ashview Stud in partnership with Richard Santulli's Colts Neck Stables--also the breeders of Belmont S. runner-up and leading 3-year-old filly Nest (Curlin)--Mo Donegal was purchased...

Edited Press Release Saturday's Belmont S. Day card, highlighted by Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo)'s victory in the 154th running of the $1.5 million GI Belmont S. presented by NYRA Bets, generated all-sources handle of $98,766,906. On-track handle for the 13-race program, which included eight top-level races among nine total stakes, was $9,530,303. All-sources handle for the Belmont S. presented by NYRA Bets alone was $50,248,624. The three-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival, which featured 17 stakes and 33 races in total from Thursday through Saturday, June 9-11, generated all-sources handle of...

Celebrity chef Bobby Flay has acquired an interest in recent GIII Peter Pan S. romper and 'TDN Rising Star' We the People (Constitution), who figures to be one of the top betting choices in Saturday's GI Belmont S. on Long Island. The famed restaurateur also bought into Creator (Tapit) ahead of his Belmont victory in 2016. Flay joins an ownership group that consists of WinStar Farm, CMNWLTH and Siena Farm on the Rodolphe Brisset trainee. "I'm thrilled to join the We the People team," said Flay. "I have been an...

The New York State Gaming Commission has articulated the security protocols it has established for this weekend's Belmont Stakes Festival. Horses running in the GI Belmont S. will be subject to continuous, 72-hour 'dedicated watch' by experienced security personnel. One guard will be stationed full-time for every Belmont S. entrant. Horses running in the GI Metropolitan H. will be under 'intensified watch,' by six to eight security personnel conducting mobile surveillance and direct horse checks at least three times a shift from 72 hours up to 30 hours prior to...

The D. Wayne Lukas-trained Ethereal Road (Quality Road) has a quarter crack and will not ship to New York for Saturday's GI Belmont S., the New York Racing Association announced Monday. A maiden winner in his second start around two turns this past January, the $90,000 Keeneland September graduate ran a monster race to be second in the GII Rebel S. before finishing off the board in the GI Toyota Blue Grass S. and GIII Stonestreet Lexington S. on consecutive weekends in April. Nevertheless, Ethereal Road was entered for the...

Wayne Lyster always knew it to be miracle enough, for a farm this size, simply to get both into the starting gate. The Derby-Oaks double hadn't been accomplished since the heyday of Calumet, 70 years previously, and at Ashview, they foal out no more than a couple of dozen mares every spring. As such, Lyster can justly take pride in the fact that both Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo) and Nest (Curlin) finished their races so well, for fifth and second, respectively, that they are now converging instead on the GI...

At an impasse with NYRA over health insurance benefits, the union representing assistant starters at Belmont, Aqueduct and Saratoga has informed the racing organization that it will wage a strike starting on the day of the GI Belmont S. if its demands are not met. With recent discussions between NYRA and Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers failing to produce a solution, the union served NYRA with a Notice of Intent to Strike. The union is asking for NYRA to pick up the health coverage from the...

Roughly 12 hours before his peers were set to take to the Pimlico main track for the GI Preakness S., RED-TR Racing's GI Kentucky Derby upsetter Rich Strike (Keen Ice) returned to the worktab, breezing a half-mile in a strong :47.20. With rider Gabe Lagunes in the irons, the chestnut broke off aggressively with an opening quarter-mile in :22.80 and he galloped out five furlongs in 1:00.60. Immediately following his stunning 80-1 upset beneath the Twin Spires, connections fully intended on pressing on to the Preakness, but it was announced...

Though he said NYRA is willing to be part of a dialogue involving changing the dates of the Triple Crown races, a hot topic since GI Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike (Keen Ice) opted out of the GI Preakness S., NYRA President and CEO Dave O'Rourke has made it clear that the racing organization has no immediate plans to sign off on proposals that would alter the status quo. "We are touching on tradition here," O'Rourke told the TDN Wednesday. "We are touching on the one thing that is sacrosanct...

I suppose it wasn't a complete surprise that the connections of Rich Strike (Keen Ice) announced Thursday that their GI Kentucky Derby winner will not run in the GI Preakness S. and will instead point for the GI Belmont S., forgoing any chance he might have had to win the Triple Crown. Owners and trainers have grown so frightened by the idea of running their horses back on two-weeks' rest that something like this was inevitable. So this year's Preakness, missing the feel-good 80-1 winner of the Derby will not...

Rich Strike (Keen Ice), who sensationally upended last Saturday's GI Kentucky Derby as the 80-1 longest shot in the field of 20, will bypass the GI Preakness S. at Pimlico May 21, owner Rick Dawson said Thursday afternoon. "Our original plan for Rich Strike was contingent on the Kentucky Derby--should we not run in the Derby, we would point toward the Preakness, should we run in the Derby, subject to the race outcome and the condition of our horse, we would give him more recovery time and rest and run...