Wagering Up Sharply at Belmont Festival
Description:
The first two days of the inaugural Belmont Stakes Racing Festival showed sharp increases in on-track and all-sources wagering over the same two days in 2014, the New York Racing Association announced June 5.
The 10-race program June 5, which featured five stakes including the New York (gr. IIT) and True North (gr. II), had on-track pari-mutuel handle of $2,539,404, up 34.8 % over last year's 10-race Friday program of $1,884,197. All-sources wagering was $18,150,169, an increase 44.7%—nearly $7 million—over last year's Friday card of $12,545,335.
The eight-race program June 4 also showed increases over last year's nine-race program. Thursday's all-sources handle of $7,082,133 was up 16% from last year's corresponding program of $6,100,233, while on-track handle rose 26.8% from $834,673 in 2014 to $1,058,065 in 2015.