By the time you're reading this article, the New York Racing Association (NYRA)'s years-long rebuild of Belmont Park that is on target to be finished by September 2026 will have reached or be very close to achieving a significant milestone.
“The inner turf course will be complete by possibly [Friday] if not Monday with all the sod,” Glen Kozak, NYRA's senior vice president of operations and capital projects, said July 25. “This was a big, big step for us, and now we're rolling right into the Widener turf course.”
Kozak's update on Belmont's four redesigned racing surfaces (from outside in: 1 1/2-miles main dirt track, grass courses at 10 and nine furlongs, one-mile Tapeta track) came during a Friday meeting of the New York State Franchise Oversight Board (FOB).
The FOB is the governor-appointed committee that represents the interests of New York State in the real estate at Belmont, Aqueduct Racetrack and Saratoga Race Course.
While construction concurrently occurs on the rebuilt grandstand and clubhouse, the big summer project in the infield has been laying down the turf course sod, which is grown offsite and trucked to Belmont every morning that the crews are working. It then gets placed atop 12 inches of growing medium that has been installed over drainage stone.
“That's been growing for now-and the sod company wants to kill us-for about 16 months,” Kozak said, underscoring that NYRA didn't want to cut corners, time-wise, to make sure the finished product is mature and robust.
“We're using a variety that is drought-tolerant, wear-tolerant, that was specific for what we're looking for,” Kozak said.
“It is Kentucky bluegrass,” Kozak said. “But what we were also looking at is the profile that we engineered for it [that is] specifically grown for us in a region [that will match Belmont Park]. It comes from Long Island. This sod is harvested anywhere from 2:30 to 4:00 in the morning, and the trucks [arrive] and are starting to install at 7:00.
“We use DeLea Sod Farms,” Kozak continued. “They do Yankee Stadium.”
“And the other thing that they're doing is they're cutting [the sod strips] very thin. So the root zone [has a] direct mesh. Watering is very, very critical. Obviously, we're putting sod down when it's ninety-something degrees. It's not optimal, so we're trying to get the water going to this as well.”
The watering, for the time being, has to be done manually because electrical power is not yet connected to the infield. Irrigation will eventually be achieved by a high-tech sprinkler system.
“It's gotten so technical with some of the new [sprinkler] heads that there's basically an [internet protocol] address for every head,” Kozak said.
That will allow NYRA to monitor exactly how much water flow goes out on each head.
“Right now it's currently municipal water, but we did apply for a well permit through the city, so we're currently in the step for that,” Kozak said. “It's the second-largest aquifer on Long Island. So we're told volume-wise it's not a problem.”
Some of that water will be held in an infield retention pond, Kozak said.
“The capacity of the pond is for a two-week period to be able to water not only the two [turf] racing surfaces, but also the infield. [Also] with this design there's irrigation set up for the synthetic track as well,” Kozak said.
Kozak said a key component of the design is uniformity across all four surfaces.
“The old Belmont racing surfaces were built in a different era,” Kozak said. “So you had different types of product, different types of natural sand or clay or areas, pockets, throughout. [Now] everything is consistent from the bottom up, so there's no area that will drain differently because of either a hedge or heavier soil that might be in place in a certain area.”
Drainage, as well as sightlines from the stands, are both expected to be improved because the four courses will be “stacked” atop one another.
Kozak said making those vertical changes for the four courses included “hundreds of thousands of yards of material that we moved on-site just to be able to establish not only the new height elevations of the racing surfaces for drainage and for the engineering required, but also for visibility.”
The widths and circumferences of the two turf tracks, plus the spacing between the courses, will also be different.
The inner course circumference went from 1 3/16 miles to 1 1/8 miles and the outer (Widener) course went from 1 5/16 miles to 1 1/4 miles, Kozak said.
“So basically we've got now a 102-foot wide turf course and a 118-foot wide turf course, [and] the difference with these racing surfaces is they're consistent width all the way around,” Kozak said.
“The old surfaces were similar to Saratoga. Much tighter on the turns, and unfortunately, that's where most of your wear happens, on the turns,” Kozak said.
Kozak explained that “the widths in between the tracks have all been contemplated so that way we maximize our distances for all of the racing surfaces. Meaning the five or six different running lanes that we have on the turf, we will be able to accommodate those and maximize those.”
Banking will be 2% on the straightaways and 4% on the turns “and everything is consistent across the surfaces,” Kozak said.
Grading during course construction “is all done by GPS,” Kozak said. “We have a survey company come in behind our work with the equipment to go through to check the grades.”
For all four courses, the finish line has been moved about 126 feet east (toward the first turn), Kozak said.
Although there aren't many 10-furlong dirt races at Belmont, the track will be running a big one in 2027 when it hosts the Breeders' Cup championships. This movement of the finish line helps with placement of the mid-first-turn starting point for that distance, which under the previous configuration appeared shoehorned into the turn and never seemed to meet the main track smoothly.
“The mile and a quarter [start] that will be used for the [GI] Breeders' Cup Classic, instead of that being an afterthought into the rail, it [will now be] in an engineered area that is set up where it breaks more to the center of the turn,” Kozak said.
As for the grandstand and clubhouse work, Kozak offered the following timeline:
“Generic numbers right now, the concrete will be done for the third deck by the end of August. Steel will be wrapping up the end of September for the framework. Roofing and everything won't specifically be dried in by the end of [the fourth quarter this year], but it's going to be darn close.”
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