SARATOGA SPRINGS — The 2026 Belmont Stakes will be held at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York, on Saturday, June 6, 2026, due to ongoing construction at Belmont Park on Long Island. The race, the 158th running of the Belmont Stakes, will be contested at a distance of 1¼ miles and feature a field of up to 14 three-year-old Thoroughbreds.

Belmont Park is undergoing redevelopment and is scheduled to reopen on September 18, 2026. As a result, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) relocated the third leg of the Triple Crown to Saratoga, a venue with deep historical ties to American horse racing. The post position draw for the race is set for Monday, June 1, 2026, at 5 p.m. ET and will be streamed on the NYRA YouTube channel.

Kentucky Derby winner Golden Tempo is expected to arrive in New York early the week of June 1 to prepare for the Belmont Stakes. Trained by Cherie DeVoe of Saratoga Springs, Golden Tempo skipped the Preakness Stakes to focus on rest and training in Kentucky. The Derby runner-up, Renegade, is also expected to be among the contenders. Preakness Stakes winner Napoleon Solo will not compete in the Belmont Stakes, as his connections—including owner Al Gold of Gold Square LLC and trainer Chad Summers—opted to bypass the race to target the Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park in July.

David O'Rourke, President and CEO of the New York Racing Association, said, “Hats off to the construction crews. I mean, we’ve got 300 tradespeople here working six days a week, ten hours a day. The fact that they’re on time with this project, it’s a nod to what New York can get done when it puts its mind to it.” O'Rourke also said, “The old Belmont was a beautiful building, had a lot of history. It was about 1.2 million square feet, but it was big. And we didn’t have any access to the infield. So, you know, I’ve been in with NYRA for 18 years now and going up to Saratoga, you really can understand like what an integrated track can be like when you have that backyard experience.” He added, “So I think while this building is beautiful, it’s going to have all the amenities a modern facility should have. That we’re going to be opening up a park. And we’re going to be able to take some of that vibe that Saratoga has, you know, in a downstate kind of way, and bring that into Elmont, New York.”

Andrew Offerman, Senior Vice President of Racing Operations at NYRA, said, “We’ve completely redone all of our racing surfaces to truly state-of-the-art, first-in-North America type configurations. That includes the irrigation and drainage systems. We’ll be able to do things we’ve never been able to accomplish on the circuit before, which includes watering almost the entirety of a turf course within an hour. This process used to take almost five or six hours.” He also said, “Very excited, maybe a little bit relieved, but very excited to get back here and bring racing back to New York, to Long Island, to Belmont.” The race will be broadcast on FOX, with streaming available on FOX One.