The quiet ends Friday. On September 18, the new Belmont Park in Elmont sends horses onto the track for the first time since the rebuild began three years ago, a nine-race card with a 1:30 p.m. first post and a $1 million race in the middle of it. The New York Racing Association has been counting down to the date on its own homepage for weeks, and the building those horses will run past is not the one anyone remembers.

Friday is sold out. Saturday costs ten dollars.

If you were planning to walk up on opening day, you are out of luck: NYRA says September 18 general admission is gone and no tickets will be sold at the gates. The $50 opening day ticket came with complimentary food and drink and a commemorative program, and every dollar of those sales goes to the NYRA Foundation, the association's charitable arm.

The rest of the weekend is a different story. General admission on Saturday, September 19 and Sunday, September 20 is $10 and includes a program. From September 24 onward, admission drops to $7 in advance and $10 on the day, the same pricing that Saratoga uses, and the fall meet runs all the way to December 6. Outside food and factory-sealed water in soft coolers are allowed in the backyard, the infield and the West Lawn, where hundreds of picnic tables are free to anyone with a ticket.

One number worth knowing before you go: the track is capping attendance at 6,000 through opening weekend and 4,000 starting September 24, because only part of the building is finished. Those caps rise as more floors open, but for now a fall Saturday at Belmont will be a small crowd by design.

A Japanese superstar headlines the first card

The centerpiece of Friday's program is the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup, a $1 million race at a mile and a quarter that carries an automatic berth in the Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland in October. Post time for the big race is around 4:14 p.m., and FOX is carrying the return to racing live from 3 to 4:30 p.m.

Seven horses are entered, and one of them is the story. Forever Young, the reigning Japanese Horse of the Year and America's champion older dirt male, ships in for trainer Yoshito Yahagi with regular rider Ryusei Sakai. The 5-year-old won Saudi Arabia's $20 million Saudi Cup in February for the second year running, then missed by a length in the Dubai World Cup in March. Belmont will be the tenth racetrack of his career, across four countries. That a horse of this caliber is opening the building says something about where NYRA thinks the new Belmont sits in the sport.

The racing is not the only entertainment on the card. Country star Dierks Bentley performs live at the track on Friday as part of the reopening broadcast.

What three years of construction actually bought

The old grandstand was a 1.25 million square foot giant last renovated in 1968. Its replacement, designed by Populous, the firm behind many of the country's newest stadiums, is a five-story building of roughly 300,000 square feet. Shrinking the footprint opened up green space around the property, and for the first time the infield is open to fans.

Only the first two floors are ready this fall. That is where the new bars and food halls live, with names like Big Red's, Homestretch Market, Silks and the Trackside Lounge, along with the Turf Club restaurant whose menus are curated by Marc Forgione, the Iron Chef winner who grew up a mile from the track and whom we wrote about in August. The Overlook, a climate-controlled lounge with sightlines to both the finish line and the paddock, and the Stretch View group space round out the second floor. Floors three through five, including a third-floor restaurant level and fourth-floor suites, are expected in the first quarter of 2027.

The racing surfaces are new too: a renovated main dirt track, two rebuilt turf courses and a brand-new all-weather Tapeta surface, which NYRA calls the most modern set of racing surfaces in the sport. One old friend survived the demolition: the Japanese white pine that has shaded the paddock for generations is still standing.

The date that matters most comes next June

Friday is the beginning of something longer. The Belmont Stakes, which decamped to Saratoga while the new building went up, comes home on Saturday, June 5, 2027, and tickets for it go on sale September 19 at noon Eastern, the day after the track reopens. The Breeders' Cup follows at Belmont in 2027 as well, which means the next 18 months in Elmont hold the two biggest racing events this island has hosted in decades.

For everyone who drives past the corner of Hempstead Turnpike and the Cross Island and has watched the cranes work for three years, this is the week the fences finally mean something. And if you cannot get in Friday, a $10 ticket on Saturday buys you the same brand-new building, minus the television cameras.