Elmont, N.Y.: Jockey Javier Castellano riding Arcangelo wins the 155th running of the Belmont Stakes … [+]
Corrected, June 2: An earlier version of this article misstated the date of the 2024 Belmont Stakes. The race will take place Saturday, June 8.
The Belmont Stakes is the culmination of the Triple Crown season following Mystik Dan winning in the Kentucky Derby and Seize the Grey capturing the Preakness Stakes. The race is less than one week away with the post position draw and opening parimutel odds released Monday of race week with a full field of up to 12 horses expected to challenge.
The 156th running of the Belmont Stakes is Saturday, June 8. The race usually headlines the biggest day of racing at historic Belmont Park. But the conditions are a little different this year with Belmont Park going through a massive renovation. The race will be contested at Saratoga Race Course, and the grueling 1.5 mile race is being turned back in distance for the 2024 edition and contested at 1 ¼ miles. At stake are a $2 million purse – up from $1.5 million – the iconic blanket of carnations, and a place in horse racing history.
The Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga starts Thursday, June 6 and continues through Sunday, June 9. The four-day festival will include 24 stakes races with purses exceeding $10.1 million, and Belmont Stakes Day coverage on FS1 is 10:30-4 p.m. ET and FOX takes over TV broadcast coverage 4-7 p.m.
A total of nine graded stakes Saturday is headlined by the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes and four other Grade 1 races – $1 million Metropolitan Handicap (Met Mile), $1 million Manhattan, $500,000 Woody Stephens and the $500,000 Ogden Phipps.
FanDuel Racing and FanDuel TV will cover many races from Saratoga and other U.S. racetracks during the Belmont Stakes Festival.
Sierra Leone, left, races head-to-head with Forever Young as they close in on a 3-way photo finish … [+]
Sierra Leone – trained by Chad Brown and sired by the great Gun Runner, Sierra Leone has lost a pair of graded stakes by a nose including the Kentucky Derby. He won his other three starts including the Blue Grass Stakes (G1), and Sierra Leone will be the Belmont Stakes favorite. Note the jockey change with Flavien Prat taking over for regular rider Tyler Gafflione.
Pros: He has mile-and-a-quarter stamina, he can take his race to multiple tracks, and the come-from-behind closer has the stamina to make a truly long and sustained rally.
Cons: The price will be short in a competitive race.
Chad Brown had some interesting comments on making the jockey change, and not completely pleased with top jockey Tyler Gaffalione in the Derby.
“I was a bit disappointed because we sort of left our game plan of having the stick in his left hand, particularly during the second half of the race,” Brown said. “You really can’t wait until the eighth pole to do that. We had that understanding. He made a lot of right decisions on this horse, but I want to make sure going into the second half of the year that I have a good feeling about all the decisions.”
Brown added that he was “a little disappointed [Gaffalione] wasn’t really prepared going around that final turn. I don’t believe the horse would have been coming in if he’d done what he’d done in the previous two races and had the stick in his left hand to give him one reminder.”
Mystik Dan won the Kentucky Derby at 18/1 odds, and then finished 2nd in the Preakness. His trainer Kenny McPeak has not yet decided if he’ll race in the Belmont Stakes, but the odds are favorable and we’ll find out by Monday for the post position draw.
“We want to run,” McPeek said on a conference call May 30 with reporters hosted by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. “We do. We’ve just got to make sure that all boxes are checked and T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted.”
FOX Sports racing analyst leading horse handicapper and two-time Breeders’ Cup Challenge runner-up Jonathon Kinchen said this on the In The Money Media Podcast May 31.
“A perfect trip was part of his success in the Derby,” Kinchen said noting jockey Brian Hernandez Jr’s. terrific ride. “He needs to be great to pull of the feat of winning the Belmont, and I’ll be against him.”
Guaranteed Tip Sheet And Belmont Stakes Wagering Guide
Thorpedo Anna, is trained by Preakness-winning trainer Kenny McPeak, who took the filly Swiss Skydiver to the Winner’s Circle in the 2020 Preakness. Thorpedo Anna won the 2024 Kentucky Oaks, and now faces males for the first time in the Belmont Stakes. She’ll try to become the fourth-ever filly to win the Belmont Stakes with only Rags to Riches (2009) doing it in the past 115 years. Rags to Riches spectacluar neck-and-neck stretch drive with Hall of Famer Curlin was a memorable “Battle of the Sexes” as called by the race announcer in the 2007 Belmont Stakes.
Seize the Grey won the Preakness Stakes for hundreds of owners of the horse through MyRacehorse, which has allowed regular racing fans to enjoy the ride by making it possible for anyone to own a share in a top racehorse for as little as $100. Seize the Grey is a son of the great Arrogate, and the galloping gray colt now has 10 races under his belt with four wins for the ecstatic MyRacehorse owners.
More than 2,500 people had bought a share of Seize the Grey prior to the Preakness victory. According to MyRacehorse founder and CEO Michael Behrens, 512 people applied for ownership privileges traditionally given only to deep-pocketed backers by tracks where their horses race.
Should Mystik Dan be given the green light to race in the Belmont Stakes, it will be the first time since Orb and Oxbow in 2013 that different winners of the Derby and Preakness met in the Belmont.
Mindframe, Antiquarian and Protective are all trained by Todd Pletcher. Horses conditioned and trained by Pletcher have won the Belmont Stakes four times including Rags to Riches, and most recently in 2022 with Mo Donegal. Lightly-raced Mindframe is 2-for-2 and now makes his stakes debut in the Belmont while Antiquarian comes off a win May 11 in the Peter Pan Stakes at Aqueduct. Protective is still a maiden (non-race winner), and he finished 3rd in the Wood Memorial (G2) and then 2-lengths behind Antiquarian in the Peter Pan (G3) with both at 6/1 odds at post.
Tuscan Gold finished 4th in the Preakness but more than 8-lengths behind the winner Seize the Grey. The Chad Brown-trained colt also finished 3rd in the Louisiana Derby. Brown trains top win contender Sierra Leone, and he’s been the most dominant trainer in the NYRA circuit with more than 30 training titles including seven-straight Belmont spring/summer meets that was snapped last year. Unusual this year with Brown bringing back a runner in the Preakness to race back in the Belmont Stakes.
Honor Marie is winless in three starts this year and finished 2nd in the Louisiana Derby. His 8th place finish in the Kentucky Derby was better than the running line as Honor Marie was jostled hard early and got caught in traffic and steadied into the first turn before saving ground and moving up willingly.
Twelve of the 24 Belmont Stakes run since 2000 have been won by horses who ran in the Kentucky Derby but did not win the Run for the Roses. Four potential Belmont runners will try to make it 13 with Sierra Leone, Honor Marie, Fountain of Youth winner and Derby 10th place finisher Dornoch, and Resilience, who finished 6th in the Derby after winning the Wood Memorial. Trainer Bill Mott said he’ll make a final decision on whether Resilience runs in the Belmont Stakes after his workouts over the Saratoga surface this weekend.
The Wine Steward, runner up as the favorite in both the Peter Pan and Lexington Stakes his last two starts, will either run in the Belmont Stakes or same day in the Woody Stephens (G1).
Note that Fierceness will not run in the Belmont Stakes and be pointed towards the Haskell Stakes on July 20 by his U.S. Racing Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. The Kentucky Derby favorite Fierceness finished a very disappointing 15th having previously dominated the Florida Derby by more than 13 lengths. Surprisingly, Pletcher enters June off perhaps the worst racing month of his career having won just 3-of-56 starts with two of those winners on prohibitive favories less than then even money.
More horse racing news and picks ahead as the Belmont Stakes betting day races and fields are finalized.
You can bet on it.
