Five days of Belmont,Four Days in July added to40 Day Meet at Saratoga in 2025. Updated Numbers of Impact of 2024 Belmont Fest
Current Sales Tax and Occupancy Tax Collections in Saratoga Springs.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Race Course will host an expanded racing meet next summer, with nine live race days in 2025 outside of the traditional 40-day summer meet.
An expanded Belmont Stakes Racing Festival will take place Wednesday June 4 – Sunday 8, and for the first time, a special July 4 Racing Festival, which will take place from Thursday, July 3 through Sunday, July 6. The traditional 40-day summer meet will be held July 10- Sept. 1.
The Belmont Stakes was first shifted to Saratoga in 2024 due to ongoing construction at its normal staging ground at Belmont Park.
In advance of last year’s event, regional officials estimated the hosting of the Belmont Stakes Festival at Saratoga would have an overall economic impact in the region of upwards of $50 million. That $50 million projection came from applying a mathematical formula taking the overall economic activity of the annual 40-day summer meet at Saratoga and assigning it to the number of days of the upcoming Belmont festival.
That overall 40-day meet figure, at just over $370 million, was detailed in a study commissioned by the Saratoga County Industrial Development Agency based on data from 2021 and released in 2023. The study additionally cited nearly $2.1 million of tax revenue in Saratoga Springs, almost $2.4 million in Saratoga County, and over $7.3 million of tax revenue in New York State as attributable to the 40-day meet.
Were regional officials to apply that same mathematical formula to the nine race extra days planned for 2025, that economic income estimate would top $80 million for the extra days.
In Saratoga Springs, city Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi explained during a City Council meeting in August that initial financial returns in the city were “not a huge windfall.”
The city finance department, at Saratoga Today’s request, has provided updated revenue numbers regarding Sales Tax collections, and Occupancy Tax collected in the city of Saratoga Springs, bringing the impact of the Belmont 2024 Festival in the city into greater focus. Those figures may be viewed in the graphic attached.