In 1867, the six-day summer meeting at Saratoga Race Course began on Aug. 7. The New York Times offered a glowing preview, praising the beauty of the women in attendance, the “unclouded brilliancy” of the sun, and the condition of the racing surface. That fourth season of racing in Saratoga, The Times claimed, “promises to…
Paula Curtis-Carter stood in front of the dozens of people assembled at the Principessa Elena Society in Saratoga Springs on Thursday. She held aloft a cup containing a couple of fingers of Guinness, preparing to lead a toast to her husband Allan Carter, who died in April. Before spending 15 years as the historian at…
On Tuesday morning at around 10:15 a.m., the main track at Saratoga Race Course had closed for training, and the tractors were out to groom the surface. Pretty much business as usual. Except for the half-dozen jockeys, in street clothes and safety vests, hanging around the track’s first turn, ready to ride horses whose names…
A minor brouhaha emerged on Twitter earlier this week when word began to spread that Laurel Park’s General George Stakes (G3) had been re-christened the General’s Stakes, with some observers claiming that the Maryland Jockey Club was trying to erase George Washington, the race’s namesake according to the MJC media guide, which also claims that Washington…
If this were an ordinary year, Saturday would not be Travers Day. If this were an ordinary year, hundreds of people would line up outside the gates of Saratoga Race Course in the wee hours of the morning, waiting for the gates to open so that they could charge inside to snag their preferred location,…
Saratogians are proud of the Travers Stakes. Most of the thousands of fans who show up every year probably don’t know that the race was first run in 1864, or that it was named for one of the men who established Saratoga Race Course; they do know that the day of the Travers is something…
If your horse has won a graded stakes race at Saratoga recently, you’ll know her face. If you’ve attended the morning workouts at Saratoga over the last few years, you’ll know her voice. And if you watched the trophy presentation after the Grade 3 Shuvee at Saratoga on July 29, you heard her name: Maude…
According to the Maryland Jockey Club’s logo for the feature race at Pimlico this Saturday, this year is Preakness 143. That would mean that the first edition of the race was run in 1873, when Survivor won it. (1918 counts twice, because there were two divisions that year.) If you go by the June 3,…
“My lady prioress, and by your leave, So that I knew I should in no way grieve, I would opine that tell a tale you should, The one that follows next if you but would. Now will you please vouchsafe it, lady dear?” “Gladly,” said she, and spoke as you shall hear. (Chaucer’s The Prioress’s Tale)…
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…
Brooklyn Backstretch 