Note: Daily/weekly events are listed at the bottom of this post. Monday, August 14 At the races Stakes races: $100,000 Saratoga Dew for New York-breds fillies and mares, three years old and up, 1 1/8 miles on the dirt Low Roller Handicapping Contest: The contests will be held on Sundays and Mondays in the Lower Carousel near…
The stakes schedule at Saratoga at the turn of the last century was already robust. Announced in February in the New York Times for the 1901 season, it featured 25 races worth a total of $85,000. Among those to be run were the Adirondack, Spinaway, Travers, Alabama and Saratoga Cup. The racing meet that year was 22…
On July 31, 2006, a 3-year-old black horse named Songster made his Saratoga debut in the Grade 2 Amsterdam Stakes. The Darley-owned colt was already a graded stakes winner: he achieved that when he won the Grade 3 Hirsch Jacobs Stakes on the Preakness undercard, crushing the field by 10 lengths. Three weeks later, he took the Grade 2…
On a morning earlier this summer, Soledad O’Brien failed to pick up the phone for a scheduled interview, calling back a short time later with effusive apologies. “I got dumped by my horse,” she said. “He got spooked, took a side step, and I fell off.” She is matter-of-fact about the experience, the result of a lifetime around horses, which began, as…
When it comes to Thoroughbred racing and Saratoga Springs, N.Y., too much, it seems, is never enough. Racing at Saratoga Race Course happens six days a week, often with at least 10 races per card, a schedule unmatched by any other track in the country. The city is saturated with equine iconography. A statue of Native Dancer…
Wednesday, August 9 At the track Stakes races: $100,000 Quick Call for three-year-olds, 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf Saratoga Handicapping Challenge: This one-day contest will guarantee a minimum first-place payout of $10,000; at stake, too, is one entry to the 2018 Belmont Stakes Challenge and two entries to the National Handicapping Champion, to the…
“One of the chief subjects of discussion in the paddock was the sale of yearlings at the Fasig-Tipton company mart last night…” The Daily Saratogian, Aug. 11, 1917 That time-honored Saratoga tradition began 100 years ago this month, when Fasig-Tipton held its first Thoroughbred sale in Saratoga. Established in 1898 to sell riding and driving…
