After a four-day racing festival in Saratoga Springs peaked this weekend with the 156th running of the Belmont Stakes, thoughts are already turning to 2025.
The third leg of the Triple Crown Saturday came and went without any major hiccups, according to Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce President Todd Shimkus.
“Anecdotally we’ve heard from the hotels revenue was up. We’ve heard from a number of restaurants that had their best weekend ever. And I think retailers did ok as well, especially Thursday, Friday, and Sunday especially in our downtown,” said Shimkus.
The festival began Wednesday night with a free concert headlined by jam band Blues Traveler organized in part by Discover Saratoga.
CEO Darryl Leggieri says it was all-hands-on-deck.
“People came, the marketing was there, we got the word out. And everybody was safe, the logistics seemed to work and I think it’s a model that we can move forward with in the future. So, whether it’s at the Belmont for next year or even beyond—you know, we don’t want to over-do it but, man, I think there’s times where we can use this model to our advantage and showcase our destination and let people have a great time in downtown Saratoga Springs,” said Leggieri.
The Belmont is coming back to The Spa in 2025 while its downstate home undergoes a half-a-billion-dollar renovation.
The Belmont on Broadway concert was a $250,000 expense. Shimkus says it would be difficult for the city to sustain that type of celebration in perpetuity.
“And we were fortunate that we had tremendous sponsor support to make that happen. But, when we used to do Hats Off or Final Stretch, or even now we’re working on July 4th, those music festivals were $20,000, $25,000. So, the scale of what we did for the kick-off concert was 10 times expensive as to what we had done in the past. So, it’s just not something you can replicate over and over. You’ve got to have substantial private money coming into something like that,” said Shimkus.
Saratoga County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Patrick Maswich says from a public safety stance, the weekend went off without any major issues.
“We’re used to doing this, so we have a lot of experience doing this and we have been assisting the Saratoga Springs Police Department for the last several years at large-scale events at the track. So, this was not a foreign event for us, it was just a little bit different because it was the Belmont and it was occurring in June. But, as far as any changes we would make, we always look to see, post-event, we always look and see is there any staffing concerns or anything we could have addressed better? But as of right now I really don’t see anything that needs to be addressed, I think it went really well,” said Maswich.
The Belmont served as a dry run for Saratoga Race Course’s 40-day meet starting July 11th.
New York Racing Association Communications Vice President Pat McKenna says the threat of rain couldn’t keep the crowds away.
“The fans are what make Saratoga, and we saw that Thursday, Friday, certainly Saturday, and then again on Sunday. Twice as many people visited Saratoga throughout the four days than did last year at Belmont Park or the prior year. So, to have 20,000 people on day one of the festival was a record since we launched in 2015. So, all-in-all, and incredibly successful, exciting weekend,” said McKenna.
With more than 120,000 track attendees throughout the four days of racing, the crowd peaked on Belmont Saturday, with long lines throughout the facility. Attendance was capped at 50,000. McKenna says NYRA is preparing for next year’s celebration.
“We’ve had those conversations already to determine how we can bring in extra restroom facilities next year anticipating the same sort of crowd—some of those minor things. If you go to Game 7 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, you’re going to anticipate and expect a little bit of traffic going in and probably some traffic going out. You’re going to expect to wait for a beer for 5 or 10 minutes. When it exceeds that is when I’m sure that organization, just like NYRA, would look to make some changes,” said McKenna.
According to NYRA, all-sources handle exceeded $125 million on Saturday, a record for the Belmont in years without a Triple Crown on the line.
