Posted on 06/16/2020 3:28:55 AM PDT by Libloather
This won’t be the Belmont Stakes as we know it, the first leg instead of the last, no potential Triple Crown on the line, no screaming New York horse racing fans socially sardined together, but the sport deserves a standing ovation in these parts anyway.
Because at a time when Major League Baseball is shooting itself in the cleat and alienating fans with a ghastly display of greed during a pandemic, horse racing is giving New York the only game in town, giving bettors a seductive siren call, giving the sport an opportunity to perhaps win back fans it has lost over the years.
“I do think the fact that we’re one of the few sports that was conducting live-action give an opportunity maybe for some people who haven’t been following racing to follow it, or people maybe haven’t been following it recently to come back,” trainer Todd Pletcher said.
Between Saturday’s Belmont Stakes and the Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5, the NBA, NHL and college football will have come back, the NFL will have opened training camps, but all bets are off as to whether the continued animosity between the owners and players will cancel the MLB season entirely.
In the meantime, horse racing is making hay where the sun shines. Belmont’s June 3 reopening signaled a return, however small, to normalcy and provided a ray of hope.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Owners won't be allowed to attend Belmont Stakes
https://www.drf.com/news/owners-wont-be-allowed-attend-belmont-stakes
It’s a shortened Belmont Stakes, too.
WTH? What happened to the mile and a half distance? This turns the Belmont into just another race. Has Fauci decreed that horses lungs become susceptible to the flu if they run over 9 furlongs?
The race was moved because if it remained the third leg of the Triple Crown, it could have conflicted with the Breeders’ Cup which in the eyes of many is the most important race day/weekend of the year. The Breeders’ Cup. is in early November and with the Ky. Derby moved to early September, the traditional gaps could have made for tough calls for connections to either race in New York in say late October or in Kentucky (Br.Cup) in early November and most people would have opted for the matter.
The length was changed because of the shift to being the first race of the Triple Crown. Some had said they were leery of sending a 3-year-old horse into a longer race this time of the year.
It is part of the prep work.
$76,264,891, was bet the first five days of the meet which represented an 84% increase over the first five full days of the 2019 Belmont spring/summer meet.
90% of the horses that ever run in the Belmont are not ready for 1 1/2 miles. 95% of them never see that distance again. As far as training them for the distance, this year is no different from previous years. Running a horse in the Derby and Preakness in the previous 6 weeks does not train a horse up to a 12 furlong race, just the opposite.
Yup, when Bob Baffert had what appeared to be a strong stable a few weeks ago, he said openly he doubted he would take his horses to New York if the Belmont was held in June at 1 1/2 miles. A couple of former trainers who are friends use the term “babies” for three-year-olds. It is the inexperience more than anything.
ML/NJ
Sat June 20th? Never mentioned date. Stupid journalists.
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