Daisy Phipps Pulito knows what greatness looks like. She observed it, petted it, and fed it peppermints many times as a member of one of racing’s most distinguished families.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people make the pilgrimage to Saratoga Springs, N.Y., for one of the most celebrated meets in the world of horse racing. This year, instead of heading to Saratoga Race Course in mid-July, fans will start pouring into town much earlier for an historic running of the Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets on June 6.
Although the three Triple Crown races have existed since the 1800s, and hundreds of individual horses have added their names to the lists of winners, only 12 fillies in history have won a Triple Crown race.
Those victories, though more frequent in the early years, have been few and far between; in fact, just five fillies have won a Triple Crown race during the last 100 years.
A total of 15 stakes at Laurel Park, which hosted last weekend’s Black-Eyed Susan and Preakness Stakes days, has reshaped the Equibase leaderboard among 3-year-olds and older horses. Headlined by Napoleon Solo’s win in the Preakness, the weekend featured plenty of standout performances in stakes races on both the dirt and turf.
The Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve and the Preakness Stakes are in the books, so now is the time to shift focus to the $2 million Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets June 6 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
