“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…
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,…
“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…
High quality racing, customer service, and history were the subjects of a New York Racing Association media event June 24 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., at which the organization’s executives detailed plans for this summer’s race meet. While this summer’s meet will be the 145th in Saratoga, both the town and the track are celebrating the…
It was tough to work up the enthusiasm for a year in review of racing for 2012. It was supposed to be the year in which New York racing finally put a decade of drama behind it, a decade of franchise uncertainty, of VLT procrastination, of bankruptcy and court cases. It was supposed to be…
On a summer morning in 2007, on the East Side of Saratoga near the Oklahoma training track, Ballston Spa native Andrew Wolfsont was laying brick for a summer job. He’d graduated from Ballston Spa High School the year before and attended SUNY-Oswego for a year, but, feeling aimless, he came home for the summer, looking…
Beginning in May 2013, the Saratoga 150 celebration will mark the sesquicentennial of the Thoroughbred racing in my hometown. The four-day program in 1863, inaugurated by John Morrissey, was such a success that he and his partners, among them William Travers and Leonard Jerome, built Saratoga Race Course in 1864. It is the oldest sporting…
Saratoga Race Course closed nearly two months ago, and before long, the Oklahoma training track will be shuttered for the season as well. But in a sign that a commitment to racing never really leaves Saratoga, Druthers on Broadway will host a fundraiser to benefit Camp TLC this Saturday, in conjunction with this weekend’s Breeders’…
Later today, Zagora will attempt to become the seventh horse to win the Diana two years in a row. Miss Grillo did it first, in 1946 and 1947; she was joined by Tempted (1959, 60); Shuvee (1970, 1971); Hush Dear (1982, 1983); Glowing Honor (1988, 89); and Forever Together (2008, 2009). Tempted was bred by…
Brooklyn Backstretch 