Union threatens backstretch work stoppage at Saratoga, Belmont Festival at risk

A work stoppage by roughly 500 backstretch workers could land right on Belmont Stakes Day and snarl the busiest stretch of Saratoga’s racing season, with the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival set for June 3-7 and the main event on June 6.

IBEW Local 1430 made the threat outside Saratoga Race Course on Tuesday, saying the affected workers include grooms, exercise riders, hotwalkers and watchmen at NYRA’s Saratoga, Belmont Park and Aqueduct tracks. Those jobs keep the backstretch moving before dawn, and a stoppage would quickly spill into morning training, stall care, security and the daily grind of getting horses ready to race.

Jordan El-Hag, the union’s business manager and attorney, said the group has spent three years pushing for changes to working and living conditions and wants NYRA to legally commit to better standards. The union says NYRA controls housing and aspects of discipline, even as the track operator says it does not employ the backstretch workers. El-Hag said the union is trying to avoid a shutdown, but called it a serious possibility if the dispute is not resolved.

The practical risk reaches far beyond one week of racing. The union says the New York State Public Employment Relations Board certified IBEW Local 1430 as the bargaining representative for about 500 backstretch workers employed by roughly 35 trainers, out of about 2,000 backstretch employees across NYRA’s three tracks. If those workers walk, owners could face delays getting horses fed, walked, bathed and bedded, trainers could struggle to fill entries, and bettors could be left with thinner fields and more uncertainty at the windows.

NYRA said it does not employ the backstretch workers and is not in a position to negotiate with the union. That leaves the dispute tangled in the structure of the sport itself, where trainers oversee day-to-day horse care but track operators control key parts of the racing environment.

The threat also collides with a major calendar shift at Saratoga. NYRA has said Saratoga will host 51 days of racing in 2026, including the five-day Belmont Stakes Festival and a 46-day summer meet, before returning to a traditional 40-day summer meet in 2027 when Belmont Park reopens for live racing. A prolonged stoppage would put pressure on that schedule immediately, at the exact moment the sport is trying to stage one of its most visible weeks of the year.

The labor push has been building for months. In October 2024, organizers won certification to begin collective bargaining with at least nine trainers, in what was described as the first unionization drive of its kind in U.S. racing. The issue has centered not only on pay, but on the physical demands and living conditions of a workforce that handles horses weighing up to 1,400 pounds and spends long hours around the barn area.