The final Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga delivered a memorable five days of competition featuring 18 graded stakes and more than $11 million in purses. Headlined by nine Grade 1 races across Friday June 5 and Saturday June 6, the festival produced significant movement on the Equibase leaderboard. From track-record performances to historic achievements, the week was packed with standout moments that reshaped the leaderboard as the summer racing season begins.

In horse racing, margin of victory is usually measured in lengths, which might seem like an imprecise measure but over time has come to be standardized as the length of a horse from nose to tail, about eight feet. Ten lengths then is 80 feet, just a couple of feet longer than a tennis court. In 2006, 80 feet was the measure of a star, a 2-year-old colt who would make history on the first Saturday in May a few months later.