Belmont Park, home of the Belmont Stakes and set to reopen in 2026 after extensive renovation, will host the 2027 Breeders’ Cup World Championships on 29-30 October of that year.
Partly state-funded, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) announced a $455,000,000 redevelopment of the Elmont, NY track in 2023. That meant the closure of Belmont Park for the entire 2024 and 2025 racing seasons.
During this time, all of the track’s races have either transferred to Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens or Upstate to Saratoga Race Course. The latter venue, 300km north of New York City in Saratoga Springs, hosted the Belmont Racing Festival last June and does so again this year.
The Breeders’ Cup, which acts as the major end of year meet in the fall, has often been on the West Coast in California or at a track in the Commonwealth of Kentucky in recent years. Churchill Downs, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, Keeneland and Santa Anita Park have all hosted on multiple occasions.
Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., has been selected to host the 2027 @BreedersCup World Championships, one of Thoroughbred racing’s most prestigious international festivals. Read the full announcement. ⤵️https://t.co/W3tSxM0Mbo
— NYRA (🗽) (@TheNYRA) May 28, 2025
Although 2027 marks 20 years since the World Championships last came to the East Coast, Belmont Park is no stranger to the event. It hosted the Breeders’ Cup four times between 1990 and 2005.
Monmouth Park in Oceanport, NJ, was the most recent venue for the meet in the Tri-State Area back in 2007. The World Championships have grown even bigger since it last graced The Big Apple.
What Belmont Park Racegoers Can Expect at the Breeders’ Cup 2027
Besides longstanding races like the Grade I Breeders’ Cup Classic and Breeders’ Cup Turf, each event on the main card for both days of the meet carries minimum total prize purse of $1,000,000.
Friday at the World Championships is all about juveniles racing. That means events on the track restricted just to two-year-olds. Older horses compete on the Saturday, meanwhile, on both dirt and turf over different distances.
The Breeders’ Cup Distaff, for example, is a fillies and mares only race. There is also a turf event restricted to just females. Mile races across both surfaces, plus sprints for the fastest thoroughbred horses, mean there’s something for everyone.
Across both days of the meet, bettors can wager on Belmont Stakes betting sites across 14 Breeders’ Cup World Championships in total. Check out the complete list of these races coming to Belmont Park in 2027 in full below:
- Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint
- Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies
- Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf
- Breeders’ Cup Juvenile
- Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf
- Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint
- Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint
- Breeders’ Cup Distaff
- Breeders’ Cup Turf
- Breeders’ Cup Classic
- Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf
- Breeders’ Cup Sprint
- Breeders’ Cup Mile (Turf)
- Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile
What Has Changed Since Belmont Park Last Hosted the World Championships?
Quite a lot, actually. When the 2005 Breeders’ Cup happened at Belmont Park, there were just eight races on the main card at the meet. It all happened on a single day, with juvenile only events taking place alongside contests for older horses.
A more sophisticated program of World Championships has developed since. There are more fillies and mares only races now, up from three to five. Instead of just two juvenile contests, there are now five of those age restricted events too.
Other additions include the Turf Sprint and Dirt Mile. The latter caters for the middle ground between horses who don’t stay the distance in Triple Crown races or the Breeders’ Cup Classic and those lacking the speed for sprinting.
A fuller program of action adds more intrigue to the World Championships. Another advantage of the meet taking place on the East Coast is a more viewing friendly times for the races internationally across the pond in Europe and the UK.
Many turf races have a lot of British and Irish runners coming over on transatlantic raids for the big bucks on offer. Eastern Time isn’t so far behind Greenwich Mean Time as Pacific Time.
