For the second year in a row, Belmont Stakes It runs on a short distance of 1¼ mile with the Saratoga race course. Carriers following truck trends should adjust their handicap accordingly. This is irrelevant for this year’s race as it bets past edition trends at Belmont Park and the traditional 1½ mile distance of races.
Let’s take a look at what’s most (and least) successful in Saratoga with running styles and post positions at 1¼ mile distances. If you know which horses have advantages, you may have an internal track to pick the winner at the 2025 Belmont Stakes in Saratoga on June 7th and cash in on your bet.
The 1¼ mile distance is not the distance that is often used in Saratoga, but is usually used for Travers bets, and in addition to just a handful of other races, there is a distance to last year’s Belmont Stakes run. Going back from now to 2000, we go to get a sample size large enough to draw some conclusions.
Since 2000, there have been 34 total dirt races in Saratoga for 1¼ mile. The most pop-up main track trend is that closers are a terrible bet on the 1¼ mile of Saratoga’s main track. Horse that comes from four or more lengths from the pace have only won four races out of 34 races since 2000. The best running style was stalkers, as defined by horses racing between one to four lengths from the pace. The stalker won 50% of the race (17 wins). A horse that surpassed the pace within the length of the lead, or nearer speeds won 38.2% of the race (13 wins).
In the case of Speedhose, success went hand in hand in the post position, as almost all of the speedhose that we’ve won in Saratoga for 1¼ mile in the last 25 years came from post positions 1-3. The speed hose from the inner post has won 13 times in the distance, of which 10 came from posts 1-3. Therefore, if you want to bet a speed hose, you need to draw an internal post to get the best chance.
Looking at the overall position statistics, 18 of the 34 races were won by broken horses from three internal posts, which account for 52.9% of the race. The winners of Post 1-3 far outweigh the winners from Middle Post 4-6 (11 wins, 32.3% of the race), and outperform the outside posts from 7+ (5 wins, 14.7% of the race). However, postposition does not seem to have a significant impact on the success of stalkers and closers. It seems to make a difference mainly for speed hoses.
Here is one apple vs. app comparison to see the Belmont stakes in Saratoga last year’s race. Dornoch won the 2024 Belmont Stakes on a field of 10 horses after stalking the pace from an early leader Seize Grey’s 1½ length. All the horses that ended up in Superfecta broke from the outside of the field.
