Belmont Stakes
The Belmont Stakes is an American Grade I stakes Thoroughbred horse race held on the first or second Saturday in June at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. Belmont Park is known as "The Championship Track" because nearly every major American champion in racing history has competed on the racetrack. Belmont Park, with its large, wide, sweeping turns and long homestretch, is considered one of the fairest racetracks. It is a 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) horse race, open to three-year-old Thoroughbreds. Colts and geldings carry a weight of 126 pounds (57 kg); fillies carry 121 pounds (55 kg). The race, nicknamed The Test of the Champion, and The Run for the Carnations, is the traditional third and final leg of the Triple Crown, third of four majors in horse racing for 3-year old colts and is held five weeks after the Kentucky Derby and three weeks after the Preakness Stakes. The 1973 Belmont Stakes and Triple Crown winner Secretariat holds the mile and a half stakes record (which is also a track and world record on dirt) of 2:24.
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