Today is the final day of New York thoroughbred racing’s six-month sentence at what the late, great NYRA cameraman Steve “Skully” Skullestead used to call the “South Ozone Park Correctional Facility.”

After a five-day spring break, Easter Sunday through Thursday, live racing shifts to Belmont Park on Friday for a meet that runs through July 17, and Aqueduct reopens for simulcasting on the third floor.

By the time the ponies return to the Big A on Oct. 26, you will be able to spend some of the long wait time between races feeding the VLTs in Genting’s Resorts World Casino New York, slated to open in late summer or early fall.

In an effort to jump-start the 2-year-old program in New York, which has become slow and slower to come around in recent years, NYRA yesterday announced that purses for all 2-year-old maiden special weight races at the Belmont spring-summer stand have been boosted to $60,000 from $50,000 for open company and $40,000 for N.Y.-breds. Also, two stakes that were not run last year — the Futurity and Matron, traditionally carded for the fall meet — will be renewed this year on July 3.

“I am very pleased about the effort to bring the Belmont 2-year-old program back to where it used to be,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “I don’t think there’s anything more frustrating for an owner or a trainer than to have a horse ready to run and have a race not fill.

“Hopefully, the extra purse money will provide horsemen with additional opportunities to race their 2-year-olds.”