by Matt Hampton
It was not unlike a normal day at the track. Business as usual, day-in, day-out, customers approach the betting window the same way they would a bank teller or a clerk at the supermarket.
On the tracks of horseracing, seconds count. In the business of horseracing, its hours that make the difference. Once the sun rose over the eastern turn at Belmont Park on Saturday, the place became a different racetrack, much as it does every year. The people in Elmont can attest to that.
“It’s always different people, and you see a lot of new faces [on Stakes Day]” said Miretza Castro, a waitress at the Belmont Diner on Hempstead Turnpike. “There are more people than usual, and of course the traffic is a nightmare.”
Castro’s dining room was a ghost town mid-morning on Saturday, but by the time the Belmont Stakes had been run, the counters and two-person booths would be filled, emptied and turned over countless times. Out-of-towners, race fans and history seekers would all take their shot at some Elmont home fries, burgers and maybe a cup of coffee.
Just a few hundred yards down the street, at the Smart Stop Mini-mart, proprietor Kurian Joseph and a handful of friends stared at the window at a group of Belmont fans walking down the street towards Gate 5.
“Looking at them, you can tell they’re not from here,” Joseph said, nodding his head at a group of men in collared shirts and women in bright dresses. “Typically, we see a huge spike on the day of the race. Of course, that’s why we’re here.”
Joseph said the mini-mart is in a prime position to take advantage of Belmont Stakes revelers, and sees a big surge in business on Stakes Day, because people need a place to pick things up and “beer inside is so expensive.”
For people who go to the track regularly, like Flushing resident and frequent Elmont visitor Geoff Sarnataro, going to the Belmont Stakes is like seeing the track and the area at its absolute zenith.
“I come to people watch, I listen to the bands, I relax, bet, and stay out in the picnic area a little bit,” Sarnataro said. “Stakes Day is more of a millionaire’s day, it’s kind of like the Super Bowl of horseracing.”
Millionaire’s or not, the gamblers certainly came out in force. It wouldn’t be crazy for a betting man to wager that more cigar ash falls on the Belmont grounds on Stakes Day than the rest of the racing year combined. People-watchers get their money’s worth, as well. Men in linen suits carried rolled-up racing forms while teenagers in basketball jerseys and flip-flops tried to sneak beer past a phalanx of security guards. Bands played for everyone, and no one in particular, and at any given part of the grounds, an observer can tell when a race is about to finish by the crescendo of the crowd.
One veteran whitecap — ushers and general attendance monitors who are hired by an outside staffing agency — summed up the feeling of the more than 50,000 fans in attendance on Saturday. “It’s really a fun thing to do,” she said. “You get to be at the Belmont — what better place could you be?”
