City and racing officials in Saratoga Springs are celebrating a successful July 4th weekend that saw expanded activities in the city and, for the first time, a weekend of horse racing.
For the first time ever, racing fans got to celebrate Independence Day at the so-called summer place to be, Saratoga Race Course.
The weekend racing festival is typically held downstate. But with ongoing renovations to Belmont Park, the New York Racing Association moved the celebration north.
NYRA Vice President of Communications Pat McKenna credits Saratoga racing fans and the city for the weekend’s success.
“Once again the response, the enthusiasm from the fans and the betters exceeded our expectations. And that’s reflected in incredibly strong handle numbers, north of $80 million, which represents a 120% increase over the July 4th festival at Aqueduct. And paid attendance at over 50,000 over those four days and that compares with roughly 9,000 down at Aqueduct,” said McKenna.
The extra days of racing come just days before the start of the regular 40-day meet. Along with June’s Belmont, Saratoga Race Course will host a record 49 days of racing this year.
The four-day festivities featured $1 hot dogs, of which nearly 20,000 were sold, a petting zoo, an ice cream eating contest, and a number of other family-friendly activities.
“Some of these things may not be exclusively associated with a major sporting event or your average day at Saratoga, but these are the kinds of things that all come together to make a memorable experience, not only for the handicapper, the horseplayer, but for the families who, again, decided to spend a portion of their holiday weekend at the track and we certainly work on those kinds of events throughout the year and we are eager to bring that element to Saratoga,” said McKenna.
The ongoing half-billion-dollar renovation to Belmont Park brought the third leg of the Triple Crown upstate for the first time last year and again this June. After much speculation, NYRA recently announced the Belmont Stakes will return in 2026, again extending the number of racings days at The Spa.
Republican Mayor John Safford says the city continues to learn how to best to leverage the upstate Belmont.
“Yeah, a lot of people learned a lot of lessons last year and have adjusted. It was very—it was hyped up tremendously last year and this year it wasn’t so much. And I think that the city will do a lot better because of that,” said Safford.
Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce President Todd Shimkus says he’s been hard at work trying to draw the crowds to what is an otherwise slow weekend in Saratoga Springs.
“The All-American celebration was created with the sole purpose of trying to drive people, more people, into Saratoga around the July 4th holiday. So, certainly having racing and more than 50,000 people heading to the track made an impact, a positive one,” said Shimkus.
After last year’s Belmont, the city’s Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi said the event was essentially break-even for Saratoga Springs, and numbers from this year’s Belmont haven’t been reported.
Still, Shimkus says this summer’s economic outlook, buoyed by July Fourth-weekend racing, is looking good so far.
“You know this summer, with all the uncertainty in the world and with international travel at a low we’re trying to figure out ways to drive people into Saratoga. One of the good things is we’re a drive market so I saw a lot of license plates from New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut here in town over the weekend and that’s what we like to see,” said Shimkus.
Saratoga Race Course’s regular 40-day meet begins Thursday.
