COMMENTARY : Belmont’s Time, Distance Make for Bad Dimensions

Belmont Park was designed to be America’s biggest and grandest thoroughbred track -- the perfect setting for championship races. During its 90-year history it has lived up to that conception. From Man o’ War to Holy Bull, most of this country’s great horses proved themselves in historic races such as the Jockey Club Gold Cup, the Metropolitan Handicap and the Belmont Stakes, which will have its annual running today.

Yet, though it is a revered institution, Belmont Park is an oddity and an anachronism. Nobody would dream of building such a track today. The 1 1/2-mile circumference of the racing strip is ill-suited to every race but the Belmont Stakes. And the massive grandstand is a preposterous white elephant in an era when most of the betting on New York races comes from off-track.

The track was developed at the turn of the century by a group of prominent New York owners, headed by August Belmont II. When it opened May 4, 1905, it was by far the most the most impressive racing facility in America, with an elegant clubhouse containing dining rooms, bedrooms and balconies. Its large racing strip was inspired by the sweeping courses of Europe. The timing of the venture wasn’t exactly ideal, however. Wagering at racetracks was outlawed in 1908, and Belmont was shut down for several years.

But this wasn’t to be the worst instance of rotten timing for Belmont Park. The capacity of the grandstand had been strained in the postwar years, when crowds of 50,000 or more were commonplace on weekends, and the facility had begun to feel the effects of old age. So in the 1960s the New York Racing Association rebuilt the whole track, a project that took five years and cost $30.7 million. The new grandstand, if stood on its end, would be approximately the height of the Empire State Building. The grounds encompass 430 acres. The parking lot accommodates 18,500 cars. The paddock is big and beautiful, surrounded by tiered stands, so hundreds of people can watch horses being saddled before a race. The new Belmont opened in 1968 -- just in time to be superfluous.

The New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation was about to be born, starting a new era of American racing. Most horseplayers would rather use a convenient off-track betting shop than travel to Long Island. Live attendance has dropped year after year, to levels unimaginable when Belmont was built. On weekdays this spring, 5,500 or thereabouts rattle around the cavernous facility. For all of Belmont’s beauty, it can seem awfully desolate when it’s so empty.

If the size of the grandstand is unnecessary in modern racing, so too is the size of the Belmont racing strip. It’s so big that both Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium could fit inside the oval, with plenty of room to spare. The track’s 1 1/2-mile circumference was atypical even when it was built; races at common distances -- such as 1 1/16 and 1 1/8 miles -- start in the far corner of the backstretch, so far away that it’s hard to see the gate even with binoculars.

Belmont used to card popular 1 1/2-mile races that started in front of the grandstand. But as long-distance races have fallen out of favor in the United States, only one race a year utilizes the whole Belmont track: the Belmont Stakes itself. When Belmont runs a 1 1/4-mile race -- such as the Breeders’ Cup Classic or the Jockey Club Gold Cup -- the starting gate must be positioned awkwardly at the clubhouse turn. The sole merit of the big track is that it allows room for two full-sized turf courses.

The contour of the dirt strip has created a distinct style of racing -- and race-riding. The turns are so sweeping that horses can run wide at Belmont with less of a disadvantage than any other track in America. Jockeys don’t have to hustle to get their horses into a good tactical position. They can bide their time and swoop five-wide on the turn. Belmont-based riders can develop exasperatingly passive styles -- as Mike Smith, Julie Krone and others regularly demonstrate when they ride outside New York.

The horses might develop undesirable styles, too. Horses at Belmont don’t have to be quick from the gate to get position in a short run to the first turn, as their counterparts in California do. So Belmont horses are rarely trained to hone their raw speed. Nor must they develop the nimbleness to negotiate sharp turns.

Almost every year New Yorkers hail some Belmont star as a superhorse, but see limitations exposed when he or she leaves home. Sky Beauty has been the invincible queen of Belmont the past two years, but has flopped miserably in the Breeders’ Cup. The most notable of these disappointments was Easy Goer, who won the 1989 Belmont Stakes by eight lengths over Sunday Silence, but lost to his archrival in three meetings on neutral tracks.

Plenty of champions are still crowned at Belmont Park. The best 3-year-old of 1995 might be determined there Saturday. But it has also become important for a horse to prove himself away from Belmont to be considered a legitimate champion.