What time does the Belmont Stakes start? What TV channel is it on?
The best race of the Triple Crown series is Saturday at Belmont Park. Not surprisingly, it’s called the Belmont Stakes.
And we’re betting you want to know what time the race will be run. The time generally doesn’t change except by a minute or two from year to year, so unless you have the memory of a goldfish (miss you already Ted Lasso) you kind of know. But not his year.
It’s starting around 7:02 p.m. on the East Coast, which is about 15 minutes later than it normally does.
OK, let’s run them down.
It means 6:02 p.m. for those of you in Chicago or the central time zone.
It means 5:02 p.m. for those of you in the Denver area or the mountain time zone.
And, for the people we appreciate the most, that’s 4:02 p.m. for those of you in Los Angeles.
But, that’s not what's most important to remember. This is the first year that the race has moved to Fox from NBC. Let’s repeat that, look for the race on Fox. Of course, it makes no sense to have the first two legs of the Triple Crown on one network and then move it to another network for the final leg.
There is a reason for this, though. Fox owns about a quarter of NYRA Bets, which is the ADW (advance deposit wagering) arm of the New York Racing Assn. One might expect when the NBC contract with the other races expires that Fox will make a strong play for them.
And there is one more big wrinkle.
Tom Durkin, who has been retired from the announcer’s booth since 2014, will call the races that air on Fox starting at 4 p.m. ET. You can do the math for the rest of the time zones. Durkin has called about 80,000 races in his career.
“The Belmont Stakes has been an iconic part of sports culture for more than 150 years,” Durkin said. “There is nothing like the energy and enthusiasm around Belmont Park with a Triple Crown on the line. It is the apotheosis of excitement.”
Apotheosis?
Oxford Languages says: “the highest point in the development of something; culmination or climax.”
OK, just to be clear, our next set of times are all local time, meaning New York. The races at Belmont start around 11:20 a.m. Coverage begins at 11 a.m. and goes until 4 p.m. on FS1. At 4 p.m. it shifts to the Fox and goes until 7:30 p.m. Then, if you haven’t had enough, there is coverage of the final race on FS2 from 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Again, just one more time, it’s on Fox. In Los Angeles, Channel 11; New York, Channel 5; Chicago, Channel 32 and Denver, Channel 31.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
