Arcangelo won the 155th edition of the Belmont Stakes on Saturday at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York.
The 3-year-old ridgeling held off second-place finisher and betting favorite Forte to capture the third jewel in horse racing’s Triple Crown. Tapit Trice finished third.
Preakness winner National Treasure, trained by Racing Museum Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, was fourth.
Javier Castellano, who rode Mage to a Kentucky Derby victory in May, was the winning jockey on Arcangelo, who paid $17.80 to win, $7.20 to place, and $4.90 to show.
Forte was the 2-to-1 favorite, even though he had not raced since winning the Florida Derby in April. A bruised foot forced the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile champion to miss the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
Arcangelo pulled away as the field made the final turn at Belmont Park. The horse was 1 1/2 lengths ahead of Forte at the wire, finishing in two minutes and 29.23 seconds, and won $900,000 check for Ebbert and Blue Rose Farm.
“I don’t have words right now,” trainer Jena Antonucci said on Fox’s live broadcast. She became the first woman trainer to win the Belmont Stakes or a Triple Crown race.
Kentucky Derby winner Mage was not in Saturday’s race after finishing third at the Preakness.
“We will give him a little vacation, and he will power up and we will figure out the best way to get to the Travers,” Ramiro Restrepo, head of the investment group that owns Mage, said in a May interview with theracingbiz.com.
Mage won the Kentucky Derby in his fourth career start. His next race likely will be the Travers Stakes in Saratoga, New York.
The race Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of Secretariat’s runaway 1973 Triple Crown victory. The legendary horse won by 31 lengths. The track celebrated the milestone with commemorative merchandise and programs for the nearly 50,000 fans in attendance.
“I was amazed with that horse all along,” Secretariat jockey Ron Turcotte, now 81, told The New York Times this week. “He was doing things that we’ve never seen before that we’ll probably never see again.”
Secretariat’s record time of 2:24 was five seconds faster than Arcangelo.
Smoky weather conditions caused by Canadian wildfires threatened the Belmont earlier in the week. Some workouts were canceled Thursday, but conditions improved Friday. A full card of races was run Saturday.