The four-day Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga had over 120,000 racing fans pass through the turnstiles for the unprecedented event.

Thursday’s opening day of the Festival featured a pair of $150,000 Stakes for the 2-year-old males and females and the first of the weekend’s 14 Graded Stakes races- the Grade 2 Belmont Gold Cup. In front of an announced crowd of 22,227, THE GREY WIZARD Won the Cup and in the process also earned a berth in the Grade 1 Melbourne Cup in November.

Friday’s program attracted 27,629 race-goers to the historic track. The feature race on Friday being the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes. A pop-up thunderstorm did not affect the track surfaces, and Kentucky Oaks Victor THORPEDO ANNA did not disappoint as she ran them off their feet in the Acorn. The Win in the Acorn seemingly, guarantees her ascension to the top of the 3-yearold filly division.

Belmont Day had nine Graded events, six at the elite level, and was taken in by a sell-out and capped crowd of 50,000. The day saw some outstanding performances by the likes of BOOK’EM DANNO in Woody Stephens Stakes a course record-setting effort in the Jaipur by COGBURN and a dominating Victory in the Manhattan by MEASURED TIME.

The feature race of the Saturday card was the $2 million dollar Belmont Stakes, in which 17-1 DORNOCH was the upset Winner.

The weather took a turn for the worst on Sunday, forcing the cancellation of the afternoon’s turf racing and the rescheduling of the Steinmann Hurdle, but the rains did not stop better than 20,000 from attending the final day which featured a half-dozen Stakes restricted to New York-breds.