1973 Preakness Stakes "Now, we're going to try and win the Belmont." Torsion's jockey Ben Feliciano said, in regards to Secretariat, "He's the best." Betting on the races held that day at Pimlico Stakes totaled to $3,792,076, which set the Maryland record for amount of money wagered for the day. Off-track betting on the Preakness Stakes reached $922,989, which was included in the previous record total. Three weeks after the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes featured a five-horse field. Secretariat won by 31 lengths with a time of 2:24 for the mile and a half, both course records in their own right. Through his
2017 Belmont Stakes of both Always Dreaming, the 2017 Kentucky Derby winner, and Cloud Computing, the winner of the 2017 Preakness Stakes, decided to bypass the Belmont. Classic Empire would have been the favorite of the remaining contenders for the race, but was withdrawn on June 7 because of a recurrent foot abscess. Classic Empire, the champion two-year-old colt of 2016, finished fourth in the Derby and second in the Preakness. Another leading contender was Epicharis, a Japanese-bred horse who qualified on the 2017 Road to the Kentucky Derby but who bypassed that race to focus on the Belmont. The New York Racing