Arising early last Saturday morning, I thought about August 3, 1863. I thought about what might have been going through John Morrissey’s mind on that summer morning 150 years ago, about how the guests in the downtown hotels might have prepared for the races, about the horse and carriage traffic jam that might have taken place on Union Avenue.

In its Aug. 4, 1863 report on opening day, The Daily Saratogian didn’t mention the weather, but it praised so effusively the “exciting exercises of the day” that one suspects it might have been quite lovely, as lovely as last Saturday, which saw its own exciting exercise in the 86th running of the Whitney Handicap, a race as redolent of Saratoga history as the race course itself.

Yet festive as the day was, something was missing.

Continue reading at The Saratogian…