Breakfast About Belmont - a benefit for TRF and PDJF

Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door (cash only) . Doors open at 9:30 a.m. Peppers and eggs sandwiches, juice, coffee and tea will be served at 10 a.m. followed by a program featuring Vincent DeGregory, Hall of Fame Jockey Ramon Dominguez and owner, breeder and former trainer Phil Gleaves, to discuss The Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 8.

    Vince DeGregory, who ranks among the top jockey agents of all-time, will head a trio of special guests at the Principessa Elena Society on Tuesday morning, June 4 for “Breakfast About Belmont” – an informal benefit for the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation (TRF) and the Permanently Disabled Jockey Fund (PDJF). 

      Because of renovations to Belmont Park on Long Island, the traditional 1½-mile “Test of the Champion” will be run at Saratoga Race Course at a mile and a quarter this year and in 2025.    

      All of the featured guests have strong ties to Belmont and Saratoga and will share their stories and experiences.

     Gleaves, who won Saratoga’s “Mid-Summer Derby”, the Travers, in 1986 with Wise Times, was a former assistant to the late Hall of Fame trainer Woody Stephens. Stephens won the Belmont Stakes a record five consecutive years with Conquistador Cielo (1982), Caveat (1983), Swale (1984), Creme Fraiche (1985) and Danzig Connection (1986). 

      Dominguez won multiple Eclipse Awards as the nation’s leading jockey as well as the prestigious George Woolf and Mike Venezia Awards in 2012 and 2013, respectively. On July 22, 2012, he became the second jockey to win six races (from seven mounts) at Saratoga, and rallied favored Alpha up in the final strides to catch longshot Golden Ticket at the wire for the only dead heat in the history of the Travers later that season. Dominguez capped his banner year by setting a-then single-season earnings record of $25,562,252.

    DeGregory, who will turn 92 on August 29, will appear via ZOOM call from California. He has represented 11 jockeys who have made it into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame, including Joel Rosario who will be inducted on August 2 in ceremonies at nearby Fasig-Tipton in Saratoga Springs.

      DeGregory was born in Greenwich, but grew up on the West Side of Saratoga Springs, where his grandparents owned a restaurant on the corner of Beekman and Oak Streets in the heart of “Dublin”, just a few doors away from the Principessa Elena Society at 13 Oak Street.