SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.–Round three of the longest summer of racing in Saratoga starts Thursday with an 11-race program.
Officially, the New York Racing Association designated Friday, July 3, as the opening day of the record 46-day Saratoga season. It was the earliest opening day in the 158 seasons at America's oldest track. A year ago, the racing over the Fourth of July weekend was considered the end of the Belmont-at-Aqueduct meet and Saratoga started four days later. However, with Aqueduct Racetrack closing for good on June 28 and with meet-ending Labor Day falling on the latest possible day on the calendar, Sept. 7, this year, NYRA just stretched the Saratoga season to 10 weekends. The three days of racing last weekend will be followed by three four-day weeks. The now-standard five-day weeks begin on July 29.
With the third and final running of the GI Belmont Stakes at Saratoga on June 6 during the massive rebuild of Belmont Park, there will be a total of 51 race days–yes, that's a record, likely never to be threatened–spread over four months.
Of course, NYRA and the businesses in the Saratoga Springs region have benefitted from three summers of added racing at the Spa and NYRA, but it has given the meet a different feel. Even the matter of when the season really launches is up for debate.
Jason Fitch, who operates Kings Tavern across Union Avenue from the main gate with two of his brothers, had to deal with that question on July 3. While Fitch was helping compose the clever signs that sit on the sidewalk in front of Kings, one of his employees said he should reconsider the words he had chosen.
“I started writing “Happy Opening Week”, and one of my bartenders walks over and she said, 'What are you doing? It's not opening week.' I looked at her and I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, it's not. This is just the Fourth of July celebration. “She said, 'Yeah, opening week is next week, Jay.'”
While it's a matter of personal perspective, the meet did get underway last weekend, featuring a pair of Grade I races, the Belmont Derby and the Belmont Oaks, and the GII Suburban Stakes that will likely be returned to Belmont Park next summer. Chad Brown, who won the final race of the 2025 season to tie Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher for the training title, leads the way with three victories. Brown has won or tied for the training title for five consecutive seasons and has eight titles overall. Flavien Prat and Jose Ortiz are tied at the top of the jockey table with six winners.
Pletcher holds the track record with 15 training titles, but is not predicting that a sixteenth will come this summer.
“I'd say we're a huge longshot this year,” Pletcher said. “We did have a good year last year with the 2-year-olds, and like I've said, in the past our success for the meet largely depends on how our 2-year-olds run. I think we won 19 2-year-old races last year, and that's unlikely to happen again.”
Pletcher said he that he certainly did not enter the 2025 season expecting that his 2-year-olds would win 14 maiden special weight races and five stakes.
“We liked a few of them, sure, but you can never project that you win the (GI) Spinaway, and the (GI) Hopeful and a couple of grass races as well,” he said. “You're always hoping that you have some of those in there but we had a pretty deep group last year. We would hope that it would be that good again.”
Spendthrift Farm swept those historic juvenile Grade I races with 'TDN Rising Star presented by Hagyard Tommy Jo (Into Mischief) taking the Spinaway and fellow 'Rising Star' Ted Noffey (Into Mischief) dominating the Hopeful by 8 1/2 lengths. Ted Noffey won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile to finish the season unbeaten and locked up the 2-year-old male Eclipse Award. He was knocked off the Triple Crown trail by injury in January. Pletcher said he will return to the stable this summer but will not compete at Saratoga. Tommy Jo finished fifth in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and is set to make her 2026 debut in the GIII Victory Ride Stakes on Friday. She is the 7-2 morning line favorite.
Saratoga has long been the highest-profile meet in the country and often is the summer stage for that year's champions. This summer meet will offer 20 Grade I races among 73 stakes worth over $23.575 million in total purses.
Sovereignty | Sarah Andrew
Ted Noffey was one of the six Eclipse Award winning horses to compete at the track last summer. Godolphin's Sovereignty (Into Mischief), the 3-year-old male titleist and the Horse of the Year, after adding the GII Jim Dandy Stakes and the GI Travers Stajes to his top-level wins in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont in 2025, is being aimed for the GI Whitney Stakes on Aug. 8. D. J. Stable homebred Nitrogen (Medaglia d'Oro) won the 3-year-old filly title, blew away the field in the GI Ogden Phipps Stakes on June 5 and may take on a slew of top older males in the Whitney. Atlantic Six Racing's Book'em Danno (Bucchero) has won his last four starts at Saratoga and may return to try to repeat in the GI Forego Stakes on the Aug. 29 Travers program.
The $1-million Whitney could be loaded with stars, including Winchell Thoroughbreds' Magnitude (Not This Time), winner of four straight, including the G1 Dubai World Cup and the GI Stephen Foster Stakes in his two most recent starts. In addition to Sovereignty, trainer Bill Mott said he is aiming C R K Stable LLC and Grandview Equine's Stephen Foster runner-up Baeza (McKinzie) for the 1 1/8-mile race. Trainer Saffie Joseph, Jr. has targeted the Whitney for White Abarrio (Race Day), the 7-year-old standout who won the prestigious event in 2023.
As per usual, the $1.25-million Travers on Aug. 29 will bring together a number of the top 3-year-olds. That group of prospects for the marquee race of the season–first contested in 1864–could include Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes-winning 'TDN Rising Star' presented by Hagyard Golden Tempo (Curlin), who trainer Cherie DeVaux said will miss the GII Jim Dandy on Aug. 1. Napoleon Solo (Liam's Map), winner of the GI Preakness Stakes is on course for the GI Haskell Stakes at Monmouth on July 18, which often is a stepping-stone to the Travers.
Also likely to run in the Travers are Derby runner-up and Belmont Stakes third-place finisher Renegade (Into Mischief) and Commandment (Into Mischief), who was second in the Belmont. Ocelli (Connect), third in the Derby and fourth in the Preakness could land in the field. Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse said that Silent Tactic (Tacitus), who missed the Triple Crown series due to a foot bruise and is close to racing again. Casse said he is considering running the filly Counting Stars (Honor A.P.) if she delivers another big performance in the GI Coaching Club American Oaks on July 25.
Golden Tempo | Sarah Andrew
The old line that nothing changes at Saratoga sounds good, but is no longer germane, as the expanded meet proves once again. Of note is the renaming of the GI $750,000 Sword Dancer Stakes on Aug. 15 to the Christophe Clement Turf to honor the trainer who died at the age of 59 last year. Clement won the race a record five times. Also, in the schedule changing, NYRA has moved the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup back downstate, where it will be the featured event on the program when Belmont Park reopens on Friday, Sept. 18.
Clement will be inducted into the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame on Friday, Aug. 7. The Hall of Fame class includes trainer John Shirreffs, who died earlier this year, the late trainer David Whiteley, the horses Kona Gold, Gulch and Mongo, and five men into the Pillars of the Turf category: owners Prince Khalid bin Abdullah, Seth Hancock, G. Watts Humphrey and Joseph Widener, and veterinarian Dr. Robert Copelan.
The historic three-year transition period that changed Saratoga while Belmont Park was being rebuilt into a 21st Century facility will end on with the closing of this meet on Labor Day. Though it was exciting and often memorable, many will welcome the return to the more traditional Saratoga season.
Mott has been a regular since 1987 when Saratoga was still a 24-day meet run over four weeks, typically starting and finishing in August. He said that the expansion from 40 days in 2023 to a total of 51 days this year has been good for him, but cautions that too much Saratoga may not be good in the long run.
“We have a home up here, most of our horses are here, so for me personally, it's easy, and I enjoy it,” Mott said. “I enjoy training here, and I like running here, so it's fine. I understand that there's a risk involved when you run too much at the same place, that it loses its luster. When something's new and short and fresh, like Keeneland or the old meet, here there is a lot of excitement. You don't want things to become boring.”
Like many merchants, Fitch welcomed the arrival of the Belmont Stakes in 2024 and more dates that boosted tourism, but said 51 dates from early June to early September has changed the boutique-meet feel of Saratoga.
“It is long,” Fitch said. “You talk to the people that are the locals that love it, and they love it, because that's what they love, but then you talk to some of the non-locals that come every year. During Belmont Week, talking to my buddy from Connecticut, he said, 'I don't feel the same buzz that I used to feel about Saratoga. I just feel like the number of days for the last three years that they're putting on has taken away from like the specialness of it.'”
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