It may possibly not have felt like it, looked like it or sounded like it, but the 10th of 12 races Saturday at Belmont Park was, in point, New York’s jewel of the Triple Crown.

However the raucous supporters ended up lacking, trainer Barclay Tagg didn’t seem to brain.

“Actually it’s very nice,” Tagg reported soon after his horse, Tiz the Legislation, rode to victory in a largely silent scene. “I can not complain about that. I’m not making an attempt to be a jerk about it, but I thought the quietude was incredibly awesome.”

Ordinarily, trainers get nervous about how their horses will react to the big crowds that arrive with racing in the Triple Crown. But the coronavirus constraints set in spot this year meant no admirers at Belmont Park, giving Tiz the Law a comfy day to make history. Alternatively of being achieved by thunderous cheers as he trotted out of the tunnel, the 3-year-outdated was greeted by serenity that could have manufactured it just a further day at the monitor.

“When [the fans] are all there, your horse receives really anxious,” stated Tagg, who came up just limited of a Triple Crown with Humorous Cide on a rainy working day at Belmont in 2003.

“It’s just great to see no commotion for a modify. You get the job done and perform and do the job with these horses, and then you bring them more than on Saturday afternoon and truly feel like everything’s falling apart due to the fact everyone’s screaming and hollering, stuff like that. Not that it is not awesome. You want to have people who are enthusiastic and all that. Even now, from the other place of perspective, it is extremely difficult on the horses. It’s just wonderful to see them strolling all-around the paddocks awesome and easily.

“I’m not versus the other folks, not at all. Which is what helps make our horses go. Just for a change now, I don’t have any qualms about it.”

The most abnormal of Belmont Stakes times went off without having any obvious hitches, on a peaceful, sunshine-drenched afternoon crammed with deal with masks, gloves and as significantly social distancing as possible — the new staples of horse racing in the coronavirus period.

Profitable seemed unique, much too.

The victorious jockeys and trainers, after posing for a fast picture in a primarily vacant winner’s circle, then went to a deck where by they stood on taped X’s that ended up each individual 6 toes aside for the trophy presentation. Lacking from the photographs had been the house owners, who, like the lovers, have been not permitted in. But they discovered their way to rejoice, as Jack Knowlton and his partners at Sackatoga Stables did at Pennell’s Restaurant in Saratoga Springs.

“It’s strange, since when you appear out of the tunnel, you really don’t see nobody,” Tiz the Legislation jockey Manny Franco claimed. “This is the second we live in ideal now, so we gotta consider it.”