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NYRA Might Hold Belmont S. Twice In Saratoga

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The next two runnings of the GI Belmont S. could be held at Saratoga Race Course, New York Racing Association President and CEO David O'Rourke said Sunday.

NYRA would make the temporary switch of the oldest race in the Triple Crown series to America's oldest track during a massive re-construction undertaking at Belmont Park. In mid-June, Patrick McKenna, NYRA's vice-president for communications, said that the 2025 Belmont S. might be held at Saratoga Race Course. While noting that a final decision has not been finalized, O'Rourke said Saratoga could host the race next June and again in 2025.

“With Belmont, you're looking at just under a three-year project, including demolition,” he said. “Our preferred course of action is to get moving on the abatement and the demolition early this winter. If we are successful, we will not be back to Belmont until the Belmont S. of '26.

“I won't have a definitive answer on that until a month from now, maybe a month and a half. In terms of our preferred path forward, that would be it.”

Saratoga Race Course would be a suitable host site because it can accommodate large crowds. NYRA still operates Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, but its once-massive grandstand is gone.

Moving the Belmont S. would be a huge economic boon for the city of Saratoga Springs and the Capital Region of upstate New York. The annual 40-day Saratoga meeting is a key economic driver and adding more days in June for the Belmont Stakes festival would be a very big deal in the marketplace.

Thoroughbred racing debuted in Saratoga in 1863 on an existing track on the north side of Union Avenue. The experiment launched by John Morrissey was so successful, that land was purchased across the street and a track was ready for the 1864 season. The first race held on the new grounds, where the current track is located, was the Travers Stakes, named after William Travers, the president of the racing association. For 3-year-olds, it is the most-important race of the season.

The annual Saratoga racing, season, now 40 days, is the highest-profile, most-popular meet in North America. NYRA officials said that total attendance for this year's meet, which conclude Monday, will again top 1 million.

Saratoga Race Course would be the fifth track in New York to host the Belmont S. It was first run in 1867 at Jerome Park Racetrack in the Bronx. The Belmont was staged at Morris Park in Westchester County from 1890 until Belmont Park was opened in 1905. The race was held at Aqueduct Racetrack between 1963 and 1967 when Belmont Park was being rebuilt.

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NYRA, State Want Dismissal Of ‘Meritless’ Lawsuit To Block Belmont Renovation

The New York Racing Association (NYRA) and the state of New York asked the Supreme Court of New York Aug. 18 to dismiss a lawsuit filed by two residents that is attempting to block the $455 million state loan to NYRA that will renovate Belmont Park.

In addition, both the state and NYRA want to quash a motion for preliminary injunction that the plaintiffs initiated back on June 22 to try to halt any state money for the project from flowing to NYRA.

The Belmont renovation was approved back in May when the final New York state budget for fiscal year 2024 included the funding.

Belmont was last significantly updated in 1968, and the current, long-planned refurbishment is being undertaken with an eye toward consolidating all of NYRA's racing at Belmont and Saratoga Race Course, with the state-owned Aqueduct Racetrack property to eventually be sold.

“NYRA's motion to dismiss should be granted, the Court should issue a judgment in favor of Defendants declaring that the Belmont Legislation is constitutional, and the Complaint should be dismissed in its entirety and with prejudice,” stated a memorandum of law that NYRA filed with the court Friday.

“As Plaintiffs claim fails as a matter of law and is not likely to succeed on the merits, and as the challenged appropriation to NYRA serves an important public interest and Plaintiffs cannot establish irreparable harm, or that the equities weigh in their favor, Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction should be denied,” the NYRA filing continued.

The plaintiffs, Jannette Patterson and John Di Leonardo, each identified themselves in the initial complaint as a “citizen taxpayer of the State of New York who has paid, and is paying, New York State income and sales taxes.” They have asked for a judgment declaring that the state's loan to NYRA “would be an illegal and unconstitutional expenditure, misappropriation, misapplication, or disbursement of State funds.”

The defendants are the State of New York, the New York State Assembly, the New York State Senate, Governor Kathy Hochul, state comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, and NYRA.

NYRA's 30-page memorandum stated that the two plaintiffs “contend that the 'plain language' of the Gift and Loan Clause bars the State from appropriating any funds to NYRA.”

The Plaintiffs, however, are wrong “for at least two reasons,” NYRA argued.

“First, Plaintiffs' insistence upon a strict construction of the Gift and Loan Clause betrays an untenable, ostrich-like approach to settled law. Although one would not know it from Plaintiffs' papers, the Court of Appeals long ago ruled that the expenditure of public funds to a private entity is permissible under the Gift and Loan Clause if such expenditure serves a public purpose,” the filing continued.

“Moreover, the Court of Appeals and the Third Department have upheld financing arrangements for the construction and operation of sports venues and facilities that serve a public purpose, notwithstanding the co-existence of an incidental private benefit. Thus, the appropriation to NYRA authorized by the Belmont Legislation cannot be equated to an impermissible gift or loan under [the New York state constitution.],” the filing stated.

“Second, although at one point in their Complaint Plaintiffs correctly describe NYRA as a 'not-for-profit corporation that has the exclusive franchise to operate' Belmont Park, they otherwise refer to, and analyze, NYRA as though it is a run-of-the-mill 'private corporation' for purposes of the Gift and Loan Clause. In doing so, Plaintiffs yet again fail to reference, or even acknowledge, case law from both State and federal courts that uniformly holds that NYRA-as a State-franchisee that operates racing facilities owned by the State on public property pursuant to statute and regulation-is a 'state actor,'” the filing continued.

“In this regard, the funds received by NYRA will be used to renovate public property and facilities owned by the State. Put simply, NYRA-as a 'state actor'-is not the type of 'private corporation' that the Gift and Loan Clause was intended to cover,” the filing stated.

A separate Aug. 18 memorandum filed by the New York Attorney General's office on behalf of the state government defendants told the court that “Plaintiffs are not entitled to a preliminary injunction because they cannot make the required showing of irreparable harm. Plaintiffs urge the Court to maintain the status quo and halt the disbursement of funds so that their constitutional argument may be heard. But Plaintiffs' constitutional argument is meritless and there is no valid basis for the Court to preliminarily enjoin the Challenged Appropriation…”

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NYRA: If Necessary, We’d Prefer Belmont-at-Saratoga

With the construction of the new Belmont Park scheduled to begin after the spring 2024 meet, and plans for the 2025 event still uncertain, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) expressed their preference that a non-Belmont-Park Belmont Stakes be held at Saratoga rather than Aqueduct.

“Should the construction of a new Belmont Park require the Belmont Stakes to be run at a different venue, then NYRA's preference would absolutely be to hold the event at Saratoga Racecourse,” said NYRA's Director of Communications, Patrick McKenna, in a text to the TDN on Monday.

In an interview on this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast, NYRA CEO David O'Rourke said that plans call for the new Belmont to be finished before the 2026 Belmont, and early conversation with NYRA had centered on possibly holding the Belmont at Aqueduct in 2025 and even 2026 if necessary. Other options, like tents at Belmont, have also been discussed. “Right now, we're in the master planning stage,” said O'Rourke on the Writers' Room. “Ideally, we'd like to have the project completed for the 2026 Belmont. I'm saying that before we have gone deep into the planning and the staging, but that is our goal entering into the process.”

However, said McKenna, “A Belmont Stakes at Saratoga is an event that would capture the attention of the entire sports world while driving tourism and economic impact for upstate New York.”

The current Belmont was opened in 1968, and will be torn down and rebuilt courtesy of a $455-million loan from the state of New York.

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Repo Rocks Is Racing’s Most Improved Horse. How Did Jamie Ness Do It?

When Repo Rocks (Tapiture) finished ninth, beaten 16 lengths, in the Oct. 29 GII Bold Ruler S. at Aqueduct it looked like the horse had hit rock bottom. He ran a 62 Beyer, had lost six straight races and his last two starts by a combined 29 1/4 lengths. He had won just three from 29 lifetime starts.

But on Saturday that same horse will be the second choice at 4-1 in the morning line for the Metropolitan H. at Belmont Park. He's won five of his last six starts, all of them in stakes company and has a legitimate shot of winning one of the most prestigious races on the calendar, one with a $1 million purse.

What has changed? The trainer. After the Bold Ruler, his owner, Double B Racing Stables, transferred him from trainer Gregory DiPrima to the barn of Jamie Ness. Some six months later he is the most glaring example yet of Ness's ability to take seemingly ordinary horses and turn them into winning machines.

He says there are no magic formulas, just hard work and good horsemanship. When it comes to Repo Rocks, even he has trouble explaining how he got the horse to where he is.

“I don't really know,” Ness said when asked to explain the gelding's turnaround. “The owner sent him to me maybe six months ago. He had been a pretty good horse, but his form had been tailing off. I had a couple other horses for them that had done good. They said see what you can do. For whatever reason, he just did good in our program. He's a big, strong, sound, good training horse. We're just happy to have him.”

When pressed for more answers, Ness said he believes the work he has done with Repo Rocks in the mornings has paid off.

“When I first got him, I was looking to get his confidence back up,” he said. “I thought maybe I would run him in a two other than allowance or even run him for a tag. That was the route we were thinking about taking. Then he worked really good. He's kind of a hard horse to train. He wants to get out, he kind of wants to run off. I think I got him settled down and training right and that was the key to it. Since he worked so good, we decided to take a shot in a stakes (the Let's Give Thanks S. at Parx). We took a shot and he won. He just got up. I thought then he'd be a bottom level stakes horse around here and we'd be fine. But he just kept getting better and better and better and here we are.”

After the race at Parx, he returned at his home track to win the Blitzen S. and then Ness started aiming higher. Repo Rocks won the GIII Toboggan S. and then the Stymie S. before finishing second in the GI Carter H. He returned to the winner's circle in his most recent start, the GII Westchester S, which he won by 5 1/4 lengths and earned a 109 Beyer.

Repo Rocks started off his career in the barn of Bill Mott, going 0-for-7 for the Hall of Famer. He was claimed for $40,000 by Tom Morley and managed to win a maiden special weight race for that barn. Then, he was claimed by his current owners for $40,000 at the 2021 Saratoga meet and turned over to trainer Juan Vazquez. After making seven starts for that trainer he was sent to DiPrima, who has struggled to make it to the winner's circle over the last two years. His combined record for 2022 and 2023 is 4-for-118.

Jamie Ness | MJC

Those who have closely been following Ness's career couldn't have been that surprised that Repo Rocks had blossomed under his care. Ness, who started training in 1999, is a prolific winner on the Mid-Atlantic circuit. He has 3,947 career wins and is winning at a rate of 25% for his career. He's had three years where his winning percentage has topped 30%. Ness is a regular at Parx, where he's won the last three training titles, Delaware Park and at the Maryland tracks.

When you consistently do that well, win at such a high percentage and improve so many of the horses that come into your barn whispers and innuendo are sure to follow. Ness acknowledges that there are those within the industry who believe that his success is too good to be true and that he must be cheating. He said that's something he has been able to block out.

“There's nothing I can do about that other than bring my horses over,” he said. “We're running under the same protocols that everybody else is. They can say whatever they want. It doesn't bother me. We'll prove it on the racetrack. I have turned some horses around but I've had a lot of horses that go the other way. They don't talk about those horses. Former stakes horse that become bottom-level claimers. We've been winning at a high percentage for a long time, so I've been dealing with the naysayers for a long time. I've learned to deal with it and at the end of the night I know that I'm doing the right thing That's all that matters.”

He said there was a time when he let the doubters get to him.

“It was a little tough at first,” he said. “I wanted to fight back. Early on when I was winning training titles all over the place I had a little trouble with it. But now I don't really give a flying you know what about that stuff. I know, my owners know, my jockeys know the work we put into this. Success doesn't come by accident.”

Ness arrived at Belmont mid-week to prepare Repo Rocks for the most important start of his career. He will also be represented Saturday by Calibrate (Distorted Humor) in the GII Brooklyn S. Calibrate will be making his first start for him after being trained by Coty Rosin. Ness isn't downplaying the moment. Despite having nearly 4,000 wins, he rarely competes at this level. Repo Rocks is just the second horse Ness has started in a Grade I race. The other was Ghost Hunter (Ghostzapper), who finished 11^th in the 2017 GI Arlington Million.

“Winning this, It would mean everything to me,” he said. “The other horse we ran in a Grade I, he was just overmatched. This time I'm coming into the race with a shot. It makes those times I was running $5,000 claimers at Beulah Park and all the hard work we've put in worth it. Hopefully, it will pay off on Saturday. It's would be good for people like me who are good trainers, but maybe don't have the top horses or opportunities that other people get. It's kind of for all those guys. We've got this opportunity and we're really going to try to take advantage of it.”

It could happen. Repo Rocks is on a roll and his speed figures suggest he's as good as anyone in the field. And he's got Jamie Ness behind him.

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