Dornoch pulled off a major upset by winning the first Belmont Stakes at Saratoga, hugging the rail and holding off Mindframe to win the Triple Crown final at odds of 17-1.
The horse co-owned by World Series champion Jayson Werth won the Belmont five weeks after a difficult trip led to a 10th-place finish in the Kentucky derby. This time Dornoch sat next to leader Seize the Gray and passed the Preakness winner finished the piece and persevered.
It is the first win in a Triple Crown for trainer Danny Gargan and the second in the Belmont for jockey Luis Saez.
Julia Nikhinson / AP
“He’s one of the best three-year-olds in the country, and we’ve always thought that,” Gargan said. “We let him run his race and he won. If he can run, he will always be hard to beat.
It marks the sixth year in a row that a different horse has won each of the three Triple Crown races. Sierra Leone, Derby’s runners-up who started as favourites, finished third and Honor Marie fourth.
“When I first rode this horse here at Saratoga (July 29), I told Danny, ‘You have the Derby winner,’” Saez said. “Unfortunately the Derby is a crazy race and we draw hole number 1. Today we feel pretty confident that we can win this race.”
Although there is no Triple Crown at stake, it is a historic Belmont as the race was held in Saratoga for the first time in the venue’s 161-year history. It returns next year as Belmont Park undergoes a massive $455 reconstruction with the plan to return the Triple Crown to the New York circuit in 2026.
The Belmont was held for the first time in its 161-year history at the venerable track in Saratoga Springs. Saratoga has become a summer oasis for horse racing and was the logical choice for the site of the Triple Crown finals in 2024 and ’25, while New York’s Belmont Park is undergoing a massive $455 million reconstruction project.
Because it took place in Saratoga, the race had to be shortened to 1 1/4 miles from the usual “test of the championship distance of 1 1/2 miles” that has been a hallmark of the Belmont for almost a century. The temporary change helped bring more quality horses into the field that previously competed in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness or both.
