America's Day at the Races to air live racing from Belmont Park and Churchill Downs

by Brian Bohl

America's Day at the Races, the acclaimed national telecast produced by the New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) in partnership with FOX Sports, will air 23 hours of coverage Thursday through Sunday, with stakes action from Belmont Park and Churchill Downs.

Presented by America’s Best Racing and Claiborne Farm, America’s Day at the Races will broadcast live racing action this week, highlighted by Saturday’s $100,000 Seek Again for 4-year-olds and up going one mile on the Belmont Park turf course. 

Churchill Downs, located in Louisville, Kentucky, will offer two stakes on Saturday, with the Grade 3, $150,000 Winning Colors for fillies and mares 4-years-old and up going six furlongs, and the $110,000 Keertana for older fillies and mares in a 1 1/2-mile turf test.

Broadcast schedule for America's Day at the Races (all times Eastern): 

Thursday, May 20

FS2: 3 – 8:30 p.m.

Friday, May 21

FS2: 12:30 – 5:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 22

FS2: 1 – 3 p.m.

FS2: 4 –11:30 p.m.

Sunday, May 23

FS2: 12:30 – 3 p.m.

FS2: 4 - 5:30 p.m.

Saturday’s marathon coverage will see Grade 1-winner Decorated Invader headline a field of older horses in the Seek Again, taking on formidable challengers including Get Smokin, who started his 4-year-old campaign with a three-quarter length score in the Grade 3 Tampa Bay going 1 1/16 miles on February 6. 

Trainer Chad Brown will send out a pair of contenders, with Delaware, who won the Danger’s Hour at Aqueduct last month to mark his first North American win in seven starts since arriving from Europe in 2019, and Flavius, who ran second to Count Again in the Grade 2 Seabiscuit Handicap in November at Del Mar.

Carded as Race 9, the Seek Again has a post time of 5:12 p.m. 

The Winning Colors will see a compact six-horse field compete at six furlongs. Frank’s Rockette, trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, started her 4-year-old season with a win in the American Beauty in January at Oaklawn, after ending 2020 with an 11th-place effort in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Sprint against males. Sconsin, who ran fourth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Fillies and Mare Sprint after winning the Grade 2 Eight Belles in September at Churchill, will also be part of an accomplished group in Churchill’s fifth race at 7:57 p.m.

Evening action will continue at Churchill with the late-night Keertana in Race 9 at 10:11 p.m. Mott will send out Delta’s Kingdom who has twice finished as the runner-up in graded stakes competition in the Grade 3 Bewitch last out in April at Keeneland and the Grade 3 La Prevoyante in January at Gulfstream Park sandwiched around a fourth-place effort in the Grade 3 Orchid in March in Florida. The field also includes Silverton Hill’s homebred Pass the Plate, who finished a neck behind Delta’s Kingdom in the Bewitch at Keeneland when stretching out to 1 ½ miles for the first time.

Churchill’s 11-race card will conclude at 11:10 p.m. on Saturday.

America's Day at the Races is also broadcast on NYRA's YouTube channel which boasts more than 70,000 subscribers. Fans can subscribe to NYRA's channel and set a reminder to watch the show on YouTube Live. NYRA's YouTube channel also hosts a plethora of race replays, special features, America's Day at the Races replays and more.

Free Equibase-provided past performances are available for races that are part of the America's Day at the Races broadcast and can be accessed at https://www.nyra.com/belmont/racing/tv-schedule.

NYRA Bets is the official wagering platform of Belmont Park, and the best way to bet every race of the spring/summer meet. Available to horseplayers nationwide, the NYRA Bets app is available for download today on iOS and Android at www.NYRABets.com.