Belmont is set to run June 20 as first leg of Triple Crown

The 152nd running of the Belmont Stakes will kick off this year’s Triple Crown — not the Kentucky Derby.

The Belmont will be run June 20, before both the Derby and the Preakness Stakes for the first time in history. Those races have been moved to the fall.

The Belmont will be run at a mile and an eighth rather than its usual mile and a half, and its purse has been reduced by onethird to $1 million with no spectators allowed at the track during this racing season because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It was tough to ask developing three-year-old horses to go that far after not racing for months,” David O’Rourke, the chief executive of the New York Racing Association, said in an interview. “As far as the purse, we partly rely on casino revenues, and it doesn’t look like they are running any time soon.”

The track on Long Island plans 25 days of racing starting June 3, offering an average of $646,000 in purses a day — down from the $750,000 daily average last year.

“This is the year for traditions to go out the window,” O’Rourke said.

There is some precedent for a topsy-turvy Triple Crown schedule — from 1923 through ’32, the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore preceded the Derby. In ’30, Gallant Fox won the Triple Crown with the Derby falling in the middle leg.

Belmont decided on its changes because of the calendar and the economics of a sport that has become something of a bright spot in a sports-starved landscape throughout the pandemic. The racing association also intends to open a training track in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., ahead of a summer meet there starting in mid July.

While horse racing has many detractors, viewers have tuned in and gamblers have bet more on the handful of tracks that have remained open throughout the pandemic. Tiny Fonner Park in Grand Island, Neb., for example, has set records for betting handle.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York urged major sports leagues to employ imagination to return to action, saying they had a willing partner to stage events if they could reduce risk by focusing on television audiences.

“There’ll be guidelines for the actual participants, but no crowds, no fans, but for the industry itself, for the televised viewers, that can still work,” Cuomo said Saturday while announcing plans for horse- and auto-racing tracks to reopen in early June.

NYRA guidelines call for a reduced number of people at the track, plus daily health screenings, social distancing and masks. The association had given more than 800 antibody tests to backstretch workers and other racing employees, and was working on securing more tests, O’Rourke said.

In March, racing was suspended at Aqueduct Racetrack after a worker who cared for animals and lived at Belmont Park tested positive for the virus. Belmont Park was not in season at the time.

In horse racing, officials saw an opportunity to stage the first major sporting event in New York against little competition. Usually, the Belmont falls on a busy sports weekend, with the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League playoffs underway and the Major League Baseball season in full swing. It is unlikely any of those sports will return before July.

Churchill Downs officials picked Sept. 5 for the Derby in hopes that shelter in place rules will be relaxed enough by then to welcome fans.

Last week, the Stronach Group announced the Preakness would be held on Oct. 3.