Belmont Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Belmont Park is a major thoroughbred horse-racing facility located in the hamlet of Elmont, New York in Nassau County on Long Island (just outside of New York City). Its mile-and-a-half (2.4 km) main track is the largest dirt course in Thoroughbred racing. It first opened May 4, 1905.
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[edit] History and Information
It is world-famous as the home of the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown.
Belmont is known as The Championship Track because most every major champion in racing history since the early 20th century has competed on the racecourse -- including each of the 11 Triple Crown winners.
In addition to its importance to racing, "Beautiful Belmont Park" is often called one of the best-landscaped venues in American sports -- especially because of the stately backyard park behind the grandstand, which includes the paddock in which the horses are saddled before each race. The backyard and backstretch are notable for their huge, attractive trees and landscaping, and the infield is dominated by two picturesque lakes.
With some of the elegant aura of its sister track, Saratoga Race Course, in a suburban setting, Belmont is known as one of the most gorgeous and accommodating racecourses in the world. Along with Saratoga, Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Churchill Downs in Louisville, and Del Mar and Santa Anita racecourses in California, Belmont is considered one of the elite racetracks in the sport.
Belmont Park is operated by the non-profit New York Racing Association, as are Aqueduct and Saratoga Race Course. The group was formed in 1955 as the Greater New York Association to assume the assets of the individual associations that ran Belmont, Aqueduct, Saratoga and the now-defunct old Jamaica racetrack (The Rochdale Village housing development now occupies the site of Jamaica).
[edit] Belmont: The family and the stakes
The Belmont Stakes was named after financier and sportsman August Belmont, Sr., who helped fund the race, and most sources say the racetrack itself was also named for him. Other sources say Belmont Park was named in honor of his son -- August Belmont II, a key member of the Westchester Racing Association, which established the racecourse.
The race was first run in 1867 at Jerome Park in the Bronx. In 1937, the wrought iron gates that bore an illustration of that first Belmont Stakes were donated to the track by August Belmont II's sole surviving son, Perry Belmont. The gates are now on the fourth floor of Belmont Park's clubhouse.
The Belmont Stakes races have been run at Belmont Park since 1905, with the exceptions of the 1911 and 1912 years when racing was outlawed in New York State; and the 1963-67 editions held at Aqueduct while the stands at Belmont Park were being reconstructed. The first post parade in the United States was at the 14th Belmont, in 1880.
Secretariat's final time in his 1973 Belmont victory (2 minutes, 24 seconds) set a record not only for the distance at the track and for the race itself, but was also a world record for the 1½ miles (2,414 m) on dirt, that still stands. Another Belmont Stakes achievement is recognized by the "Woody's Corner" display in the first-floor clubhouse lobby, commemorating the five consecutive Belmont Stakes winners trained by the legendary Woody Stephens from 1982 to 1986.
Other memorable performances in Belmont Park history include the opening of the track in 1905 with the famous dead heat between Sysonby and Race King in the Met Cap. In 1923, Belmont Park was host to an international duel between the American and English champions: Zev, winner of the Kentucky Derby, against Papyrus, winner of the Epsom Derby. Zev won by five lengths in front of the biggest crowd for a match race in a hundred years. Then there was the tragedy-marred victory of Foolish Pleasure over champion filly Ruffian in a 1975 match race (the latter broke down during the race and had to be euthanized; Ruffian is buried near the finish line in the infield at Belmont Park, her nose pointed towards the finish pole).Affirmed's epic stretch duel with Alydar in the 1978 Belmont Stakes, a victory that gave Affirmed the Triple Crown; and Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew's defeat of Affirmed in the Marlboro Cup in September of that same year. The Marlboro, a key event of the Fall Championship meets in the 1970s and 80s, also included a dramatic come-from-behind win by Forego in the 1976 installment.
[edit] Other key races at Belmont
In addition to the Belmont Stakes, other major races held at Belmont have included the Jockey Club Gold Cup, the Woodward Stakes, the Suburban Handicap and the Memorial Day standby — the Metropolitan Handicap, also known as the "Met Mile." (NYRA moved the Woodward to Saratoga in 2006.)
Two important races for fillies, the Mother Goose Stakes and the Coaching Club American Oaks, are also run at Belmont as the first two installments of the New York Racing Association's Triple Tiara series for fillies. The third is the Alabama Stakes, run at Saratoga. In years past, the New York Filly Triple Crown consisted of the Mother Goose, CCA Oaks and another Belmont race, the Acorn Stakes (which is still run at the track).
All of the above races are contested on dirt; notable turf (grass) races include the Bowling Green Handicap, Man O' War Stakes, Flower Bowl Invitational Stakes and the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational.
There is also a race called the Iroquois Handicap held there in the fall.
[edit] Belmont Breeze
The official drink of the Belmont Stakes is the Belmont Breeze, created by Dale DeGroff in 1997 and served every year since at the Triple Crown, although it did not have its own commemorative glass until June 7, 2003, the year that Funny Cide was New York's most promising prospect. The recipe for the Belmont Breeze is:
- BELMONT BREEZE
- original drink by Dale DeGroff
- 1½ oz. Jack Daniel’s or Seagram's 7
- ¾ oz. Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry
- ½ oz. Fresh Lemon Juice
- 1 oz. Simple Syrup
- 1 ½ oz. Fresh Orange juice
- 1 ½ oz. Cranberry juice
- Shake all ingredients with ice and top with half 7UP and half soda, approximately one ounce of each. Garnish with fresh strawberry and a mint sprig and a lemon piece.
[edit] Old Belmont Park
The original Belmont plant opened on May 4, 1905. In its first 15 or so years, Belmont Park featured racing clockwise, in the "English fashion" --allowing the upper-class members of the racing association and their guests to have the races finish in front of the clubhouse, just to the west of the grandstand. (A "field stand," at what was then the top of the stretch, was located east of the grandstand). The original finish line was located at the top of the present-day homestretch.
The old clubhouse was torn down in the 1950s, along with the Manice Mansion -- the turreted 19th-century homestead that served as the headquarters of Belmont's Turf and Field Club.
A later innovation was created by Joseph E. Widener, who took over track leadership when August Belmont II died in 1924: the Widener Course. It was a straightaway of just under seven furlongs (1,408 m) that cut diagonally through Belmont’s training and main tracks, hitting near the quarter-pole of the main track. The course was removed in 1958.
There are presently two features of Old Belmont Park remaining today. First is the display of four stone pillars on Hempstead Turnpike, a gift from the Mayor and Park Commissioners of the City of Charleston, S.C. The pillars had stood at the entrance of the Washington Course of the South Carolina Jockey Club in Charleston, S.C., which operated from 1792 to 1882. The stone pillars are now found at the clubhouse entrance. Lesser known-but more visible-are the racing motif iron railings seen partially bordering the walking ring. The railings, used as decoration on the south side of the old Belmont grandstand, were salvaged during the 1963 demolition.
The original Belmont Park was not only unprecedented in its size, but also had the then-new innovation of a Long Island Rail Road extension from the Queens Village station, running along the property, tunneling under Hempstead Turnpike, then terminating on the south side of the property. The train terminal was moved to its present location north of the turnpike after the 1956 season.
Near the railroad terminal was yet another track -- Belmont Park Terminal, a steeplechase course operated by United Hunts until the 1920s.
In addition to racing history, Belmont Park made history in another industry native to the Hempstead Plains -- aviation. Some 150,000 people were drawn to the track on Oct. 30, 1910 at the climax of the a Wright Brothers-staged international aerial tournament, which had started eight years earlier. The event came at the beginning of a period (1910, 1911 and 1912) in which racing was outlawed in New York State.
Eight years later, Belmont and aviation were reunited when the racetrack served as the northern point of the first US air mail route, between the New York area and Washington, DC.
[edit] Belmont Park today
The last race at the old Belmont Park was run in October 1962. The following spring, NYRA Chairman James Cox Brady announced that two separate engineering surveys found the grandstand/clubhouse was unsafe and had to be rebuilt. The book Belmont Park: A Century of Champions, noted the comment of NYRA President Edward T. Dickinson: "When you sighted down the stands, you could see some of the beams were twisted. They were in something of an S-shape."
The old structure was demolished and rebuilt between 1963 and May of 1968 (the Inner Turf Course was also added during this time). The Belmont race meetings were moved to Aqueduct Racetrack in South Ozone Park, Queens, during that time.
The new $30.7 million Belmont Park grandstand, designed by Arthur Froehlich, was opened May 20, 1968. It has a total attendance capacity of 100,000, the largest in racing. The seating portion totals nearly 33,000. (Ironically, the smaller, more cramped Churchill Downs grandstand has more seats than Belmont, 51,000.) Unlike Churchill and Pimlico, Belmont does not allow paying spectators to picnic in the infield.
Racing at Belmont Park is conducted in two annual installments, or "meetings": The "spring-summer meeting," which usually begins on the second Wednesday in May and lasts through the fourth Sunday in July, followed by a "fall meeting" commencing on the Friday after Labor Day and ending the fourth Sunday in October. Racing is held at Saratoga during the time between these two meetings. Prior to 1977 a summer meeting was contested at Aqueduct from mid-June until Saratoga began; its abolition led to the Belmont spring meeting being lengthened to its present duration (and eventual renaming).
The autumn installment is known as the Fall Championship meet, since many of the eventual Eclipse Award title winners have earned key victories in some of the meeting's races, such as the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Before the advent of the Breeders' Cup series in the mid-1980s, the Belmont Fall Championship races themselves helped determine the divisional championships.
Belmont has been home to the daylong Breeders' Cup championship in 1990, 1995, 2001 (the first major sports event to be held after the September 11 Attacks in the metropolitan area) and most recently in 2005.
Belmont's backyard is well-known as a gathering place for racing fans to see their horses saddled before they hit the track. The center of the paddock is dominated by a white pine that predated the track itself -- it turned 180 years old in 2006. A stylized version of the pine has been the centerpiece of Belmont Park's corporate logo since 1968.
The paddock area also serves as a picnic area for the increasing numbers of fans who make Belmont Stakes Day — the Saturday that falls within the range of June 5 through June 11 — a tourist attraction.
Officials of the New York Racing Association made a concerted effort to boost attendance on Belmont Stakes Day after the 1995 installment drew only 37,171. In 1997, NYRA and local officials put together the Long Island Belmont Stakes Festival -- featuring parades, food fests and other events in surrounding communities to promote the big race.
The effort succeeded in creating a buzz around the Belmont Stakes apart from the chance of seeing a Triple Crown. The 2000 and 2001 Belmonts -- both run when there was no Crown on the line -- drew announced crowds of 67,810 and 73,857. The Belmont Stakes Festival continues to be held in communities near the track, such as Floral Park and Garden City.
[edit] Belmont Park and Long Island
The racetrack, grandstand, training and barn facilities are located entirely in the communities of Elmont and Floral Park in Nassau County, New York, just outside the New York City limits. According to the City of New York's own map portal, the Long Island Rail Road station on the property, the ramp between the grandstand and the train station, and some of the adjoining parking fields straddle the Queens County line. Belmont Park has direct on- and off-ramps to the Cross Island Parkway, which runs north-south and is just to the west of the park. Belmont Park's physical address is given as 2150 Hempstead Turnpike (New York State Route 24).
The Belmont Park property originally totalled some 650 acres (2.6 km²). Because the property stretched slightly into Queens, bookmakers in the track's early days -- when bookmaking was illegal -- could escape arrest from one county's authorities by jumping over the border. It was once even believed that horses rounding the far turn crossed into Queens and then came back to Nassau for the stretch run.
After the 1956 season, the construction of a wider bus road beyond the main course's final turn forced the turn to be shortened. According to the Belmont publication commemorating the track's 1968 reopening, that move cut 96 feet (29 m) off its circumference. The current layout has the entire racing course inside Nassau County.
Belmont Park being located in Elmont is a coincidence. The western Nassau County hamlet is not named for the track's founding family. Residents decided to change the area's name from Foster's Meadow to Elmont in 1882, 23 years before Belmont's inaugural. Probably since Elmont was a new, relatively unknown community, the Opening Day program in 1905 carries the legend "Queens, Long Island" -- for Queens Village, the established community closest to the property. Nassau County, in which virtually all the Belmont property is located, had just been established six years earlier.
[edit] Belmont Park and popular culture
A January 1975 episode of the ABC sitcom The Odd Couple -- entitled "Felix the Horse Player" -- was filmed partly at Belmont Park, though one of the race clips on the show features the shot of an Aqueduct starting gate.
A few years later, Dick Cavett took the camera crew of his PBS talk show to Belmont for a look at horse racing.
Scenes for the Woody Allen movies Mighty Aphrodite and Melinda Melinda were shot at Belmont Park, as was a paddock scene for the 1990s remake of the film Gloria with Sharon Stone and George C. Scott.
Because of Belmont's role hosting big, nationally-televised races on broadcast and cable TV, its track announcers have been among the best known in the sport. Among the famous race callers who've served as Belmont PA announcers are Fred Capossella, Dave Johnson, Chic Anderson, Marshall Cassidy and present voice Tom Durkin.
Comedian Robert Klein made Capossella's race calls the subject of one of his routines, captured on his 1974 album Mind Over Matter.
Contrary to popular belief, Johnson -- not Anderson -- was Belmont Park's PA announcer during Secretariat's 1973 romp in the Belmont Stakes. Anderson, the TV "voice of horse racing" in the 1970s (as Johnson would be in the 1990s) and the announcer at Churchill Downs, called the '73 Belmont Stakes for CBS Television, where he famously described Big Red as "moving like a tremendous machine".
Anderson would succeed Johnson as announcer at Belmont and the other NYRA tracks in May 1977, serving until his death on March 24, 1979. Anderson was followed by frequent backup voice Marshall Cassidy, who was the lead caller of NYRA races until Durkin replaced him in September 1990.
Sources: New York Racing Association (NYRA), City of New York
[edit] Physical Attributes
The 430 acre (1.7 km²) racing, training and barn complex is located on the western edge of the Nassau County region known as the Hempstead Plains. Just a few miles east on the same plains, the first racing meet in North America was held in 1665, supervised by colonial governor Richard Nicolls.
The dirt racecourse — known officially as the Main Track and nicknamed Big Sandy by racing followers — has a circumference of 1½ miles (2,414 m). Immediately inside of this is the Widener Turf Course (named after the Widener family that has a long and prestigious history in American horse racing) spanning 1 5/16 miles plus 27 feet (2,120 m), which in turn rings an Inner Turf Course 1 3/16 miles plus 103 feet (1,942 m) round. On the Main Track, it is 1,097 feet (334 m) from the top of the stretch to the finish line, and the segment between the wire and the start of the first (clubhouse) turn covers 843 feet (257 m) (this latter segment is shorter by approximately 165 feet [50 m] on both of the turf courses, in order to accommodate the two chutes that exist on the Widener Turf Course, from which turf races of one mile [1,609 m] and 1 1/16 miles [1,710 m] are started; an additional chute exists for 1 1/16-mile [1,710 m] races on the inner turf course).
According to June 2005 research of several sources, including the Daily Racing Form and Newsday, Belmont has the largest dirt racecourse of any Thoroughbred track in not only North America but the world -- a mile and a half (2414 m). Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto has a grass course of the same size; however it is outside of the dirt track, making Woodbine the only North American track of which this is true.
By comparison, the King Abdul Aziz racetrack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has a mile-and-a-quarter (2,012 m) main track (as does Colonial Downs in Virginia), while Aqueduct is a mile and an eighth (1,811 m). (Other grass courses in Europe have been longer, and Saudi Arabian racing once featured a course in old Riyadh from nine to 12 miles (14 to 19 km) in length).
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
