After meeting with the media earlier in the day July 17, New York Racing Association president and chief executive officer Christopher Kay made his first public appearance at the annual Saratoga Race Course meet preview at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Kay was one of five panelists who took questions from moderator Brien…
“Skip the horse races in Saratoga Springs.” So advised New York Magazine in May, suggesting instead that visitors take advantage of the myriad other delights of the small city in upstate New York: the restaurants, the hotels, the parks. A former and erstwhile Saratoga resident, I heartily endorse all of those things, along with many…
Despite a press conference that was at times contentious, New York Racing Association president and CEO Chris Kay said that he hopes to be at the helm of NYRA for a long time. Kay met with members of the Saratoga Race Course press corps Jul 17, taking questions for approximately 30 minutes on topics ranging…
Last March, I was standing at Gulfstream Park watching morning workouts when I got a phone call from a woman named Patricia Lane. She was, she said, producing a documentary on Saratoga for the racing sesquicentennial, and she wondered whether I might be interested in being interviewed for it. Thrilled and nervous, I sat with…
As Saratoga Race Course celebrates its 150th anniversary, racing figures look back on their favorite memories and share what the track and city mean to them. Julie Krone, Hall of Fame jockey Saratoga is not just a race meet, it’s such a mix of people really honoring summertime. You acknowledge that the days are long,…
On June 1, the New York-bred filly Lovely Syn kept her spotless race record intact with a 10-length front-running score in the Bouwerie Stakes at Belmont Park. She’d won her four races by a combined margin of nearly 30 lengths. “We’re having so much fun racing her,” said her owner Michael Parisi after the race,…
“Mr. Morrissey deserves great credit for the excellent manner in which the whole detail of his attractive entertainment is managed.” So wrote an approving reporter in the Aug. 4, 1863, edition of the Daily Saratogian, following the first day of the inaugural racing meet in the village of Saratoga Springs. Visitors to the little track…
More than 10 years ago, artist/writer/curator Rhonda Lieberman was at an art installation by James Turrell at the Museum of Modern Art’s P.S. 1 in Long Island City, Queens. It was, said the East Village resident, all about light and emptiness, and about mediating environments. “It was an empty room, and the ceiling had been…
On Saturday at 1 p.m., the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and handicapper Tom Amello are teaming up to help Saratoga-area racing fans brush up on their handicapping skills before the meet opens on Friday, July 19. A former host of Capital OTB’s “Trackfacts” (unfortunately cancelled in the last year by the…
This month’s edition of sexism in sports is brought to you by Insider Louisville, the BBC, Hollywood Park, and the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. Back in April, Insider Louisville published what was meant, according to the author, to be a paean to the female turf writer, an admiring salute to the women on the Churchill Downs backstretch…
Brooklyn Backstretch 