Fifty years ago, as the centennial Saratoga racing season came to a close, this paper’s editorial board began, after a summer looking back at Saratoga’s history, to look forward.

More reliant then than now on the summer season for economic prosperity, Saratoga was anticipating the opening of a new hotel, one expected to attract more visitors year-round, lessening the local economy’s dependence on the track.

The editorial page of The Saratogian called for support of the New York Racing Association’s “bid for extension of the mutuel tax division so that Saratoga facilities can be improved,” again with an eye on increasing local revenue. It was the end of a historic summer, but it was, the paper apparently thought, no time for complacency.

It’s a different decade, a different century, a different NYRA, and a different government, but then, as now, negotiations with New York state were in the forefront of racing’s exigencies.

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