Forever Young is heading back to America, and Belmont Park has landed a suitably heavyweight name for its return to racing.
The Japanese and American champion is set to run in the Grade 1, $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup at the new Belmont Park on Friday, September 18, before moving on to Keeneland for his Breeders’ Cup Classic defence on October 31.
NYRA confirmed the plan on Sunday, with the race forming the centrepiece of Belmont Park’s opening-day programme after its major redevelopment. The Jockey Club Gold Cup will also be shown live on FOX, giving the reopening card a proper international draw.
Belmont gets a star for its return
The decision keeps Forever Young on dirt and gives him a direct American route into the race he won at Del Mar last year. Connections had considered other international options, but the choice of Belmont and Keeneland keeps the five-year-old on the surface that has made him one of the most valuable and recognisable horses in training.
For Belmont, it is a significant coup. The track is due to resume racing on September 18, and Belmont Park’s training return has already sharpened attention on how quickly the new venue will re-establish itself at the top of the American programme.
The Jockey Club Gold Cup is no soft landing. The 10-furlong contest is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race, with the winner receiving an automatic place in the Classic, and it has a roll of honour that stretches through Man o’ War, Forego, Cigar, Curlin and several Triple Crown winners.
Classic defence comes into focus
Forever Young’s latest campaign has already carried him through familiar elite territory. He was second to Magnitude in the Dubai World Cup in March, after again winning the Saudi Cup, and he remains a rare horse with genuine championship form across Japan, the Middle East and the United States.
His Del Mar Classic victory last year, achieved over Sierra Leone, made him the first Japanese-trained winner of the race and helped secure his Eclipse Award as champion older dirt male. That profile has only grown since Forever Young was handed a Royal Ascot entry earlier in the season, a sign of how wide the options around him had become.
The Belmont route also drops him into a division that could be gathering serious depth by autumn. Sovereignty, Magnitude, White Abarrio and Baeza are among the names in the wider older-horse conversation, with the Stephen Foster field at Churchill Downs expected to help sort several of those strands this weekend.
Yahagi’s plan carries real intent
Trainer Yoshito Yahagi and owner Susumu Fujita have never been shy about travelling with Forever Young, but this is a notably clean piece of placement. A mile and a quarter at Belmont, six weeks before the Breeders’ Cup, gives him a proper race without asking him to change surface, continent or discipline at a delicate stage of the season.
It also means the new Belmont Park will not simply reopen with history behind it. It will reopen with one of the world’s best dirt horses in the gate, and with the Breeders’ Cup Classic picture moving sharply into view.
NYRA’s announcement confirmed Forever Young’s Jockey Club Gold Cup target, while America’s Best Racing lists the race as a 10-furlong, $1 million dirt contest for three-year-olds and up.
