This Saturday, Belmont Park will welcome us back to the venerated mile and a half oval for the 152nd Belmont Stakes. Over these last few weeks, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has changed the complexion of the Triple Crown for 2020, forcing NYRA to run the race on a different date, at a different distance, and without spectators. The 162nd version is historic for more than one reason, but the Belmont is history itself, really, for all of the names and faces that have graced both the race and the place for more than a century. Embedded within this is William Woodward’s Belair Stud, who dominated the Test of the Champion with five winners in a decade.
William Woodward honed his fascination with horse racing during his tenure as secretary to the American ambassador to the United Kingdom, Joseph Choate. Woodward valued horses that could run a distance and bred his own Belair stock with races like the Belmont in mind. In his memoir about Gallant Fox’s career, the race that Woodward initially wanted to point the Fox toward in his three-year-old year was the Belmont Stakes. The Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes were nice bonuses if the horse were ready. His fondness for the Belmont’s twelve furlong distance made it one of his favorite targets each year. Belair’s five Belmont winners in the 1930s were among the decade’s best horses.
- Gallant Fox (1930) — This son of Sir Gallahad III and Marguerite became America’s second Triple Crown winner with his win in the Belmont Stakes, beating Whichone, the two-year-old champion who had been tapped as the Fox’s rival and biggest competition.
- Faireno (1932) — This Belair colt missed the Kentucky Derby and Preakness after losing the Wood Memorial. Woodward sent him in the Belmont, which he won by a length and a half.
- Omaha (1935) — Gallant Fox’s best son, Omaha was not expected to dominate the Triple Crown races the way he did, but he showed the difference that his massive stride could make once he got going, winning the Belmont by a length and a half.
- Granville (1936) — Sired by Gallant Fox, Granville had terrible luck at the start of the Kentucky Derby, after a chain reaction of horses knocking into each other caused the colt to lose his rider. In the Preakness, he would finish second to Kentucky Derby winner Bold Venture, but then nose out Mr. Bones in a thrilling stretch run to win the Belmont.
- Johnstown (1939) — This Belair colt easily won both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, but missed the Triple Crown when he lost the Preakness Stakes on an off track.
Belair would add one more Belmont Stakes to its roll of champions in 1955 when Nashua won the Test of the Champion for William Woodward, Jr., who had taken over his father’s stable and silks after the elder’s death in 1953. One more Belmont winner, Damascus in 1967, ran in the classic white with red polka dots, but officially counts as a win for Edith Woodward Bancroft, rather than Belair Stud. Only one other owner, James R. Keene, shares the same distinction of owning six Belmont Stakes winners.
This year’s Belmont Stakes opens the 2020 Triple Crown season rather than concluding it. At a mile and an eighth, it won’t look like the Test of the Champion that Belair dominated in the 1930s, but it does give us a chance to celebrate our favorite sport, even if we have to do it from our living rooms rather than trackside.