The new year promises to be a monumental one for horse racing in New York — with the opening of a reimagined Belmont Park and the closing of Aqueduct Racetrack scheduled for this summer. The work is ongoing at the new Belmont Park, the New York Racing Association-led (NYRA) $450 million transformation of the massive racetrack on the Queens/Long Island border where legendary horses such as Secretariat, Seattle Slew and American Pharoah achieved glory in winning the Belmont Stakes, the third and final leg of thoroughbred racing's Triple Crown. Expected to open this September, the new Belmont will look dramatically different from its predecessor. The hulking, quarter-mile-long grandstand was...
