Thursday, September 06, 2007
Watching Thoroughbreds race at Saratoga
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Horse –playing seems to be a lost form of art in East Midtown. There is no longer an OTB parlor on Third Avenue, and one does not hear of adventures at Yonkers and Meadowlands, on a daily basis. Saratoga Springs, the earliest Thoroughbred course and the one- time racing capital built by New York’s mercantile aristocracy, is not a destination of the current generation. I only recall one neighbor, a labor lawyer and fellow parent at Friends Seminary on East 16th Street, who built their family vacations around the Saratoga racing season, with his family deposited at one of the local lake resorts while he spent his days at the clubhouse.
Saratoga Springs is a small Victorian town halfways between Albany and Lake George. in the vacationeers’ paradise part of New York. It is a three-four hour each way day trip for the hardy, with gate time at 1 PM and the last race around 6 PM. From the city, take the Deegan into the NY Thruway I-87N, continuing straight north, to Exit 13N, then follow Broadway (Rte 9), turn half-right at Circular Road, then a right at Union Ave. The Saratoga Racetrack will come up on your right, with opportunistic private parking lots ($10) and t-shirt shops on the left – the inside NY Racing Association’s parking lot (same price) tends to get filled up.
We followed an east-of-the –Hudson River route, along picturesque Taconic Parkway, turning left when it ends, into I-90W (a right will take you to Boston), then a right into I-87N, arriving some three hours late for the starting bell. The sunbathing parking attendant with a sea-shell necklace, seeing our hesitation, voluntarily reduced the price to $5, then directed us into a nice spot, half a block to the entrance. The crossing guide carefully held up the traffic, explaining with a smile that half of the drivers were on their cell-phones, not watching the lights. Another smiling man near the ticket booth gave us two-dollar discount tickets, reducing the entrance fee to a single dollar, and explained how to get to the clubhouse escalator (I had promised us the luxury of $15 shaded clubhouse seats).
Off the entrance, the back of the track tree-shaded picnic area is huge, with food tents, families and children playing games and eating Nathan’s hotdogs, while serious pater-fanilias study scratch sheets at picnic tables and watch the assembling race horses on giant TV screens, above rows of betting machines.
Once we escalated to the Clubhouse floor, a motherly ticket clerk sold us $2 admissions, then called us back, to stamp our wrists. The area in back of the seats had more Coke and beer stands, with betting machines and clerk windows lining the walls, front and back. A sweet lady watching the seat holders advised us to skip the additional expense of $10 and walk down to the free grandstand benches to enjoy the remaining three races. As we thought it over , I took my nearest-and-dearest’s picture against the track background. Suddenly, a feisty little woman passing by decided to photograph us together, and that done, declared she was leaving and would give us her red seat sticker. She actually took us there, past the guard.
That was nice, and sitting down, we explored the day’s race card, picking a couple of appealing names to bet on. Red sticker on, I walked up to the machines and asked a bettor where to insert my money. He told me to buy a voucher at the betting window, put it in the machine’s left-side slot, and follow instructions. The machine would spit out bet tickets from the slot on the right, along with a new voucher of my remaining balance.
That was not too hard, I bought a $10 voucher, fed it into the technological wonder, and informed it as how I was putting two bucks, to win, on Number Two. It worked, and, emboldened, I tried to experiment with another $2 to win, place and show on Number Seven. Ouch, it took $6, leaving me with a balance of $2. Slightly set aback, I came back to watch the horses assembling for the race, walked by horseback grooms to the starting gate, which was placed on the inside grass track, rather than the outside hard track. Number Two was there, showing odds of 9/5 to 1, with $35K bet on it, of a total handle of $150K for the race. They took off, to the modest cheers of the crowd around us, and guess what, Number Seven won, paying $11.20 for the lot. The two ladies sitting next to us congratulated me and explained that we were lucky to get to see the next race, a steeplechase, run only on Thursdays. It was a long race, twice around and more, and the early leader was chased down at the end.
A very gentile event, and a satisfying day.
Saratoga itself is an interesting old town, with more than 1000 columnated white Victorian buildings lining the side streets. The 100 local springs created an early European style health resort, and horse racing followed, inaugurated by legendary John “Old Smoke” Morrissey, a boxing champion, gambler and politician, in 1863, with the aid of such worthies as William P. Travers and Leonard P. Jerome (1817-91), grandfather of Winston Churchill (his daughter Jenny, born on Amity Street - or was it on Henry Street - in Brooklyn, married Sir Randolph Churchill, the Queen's sometime Chancellor of the Exchequer). Thoroughbreds race in August, with a harness race track, polo matches and other equestrian events throughout the year Along the wide center-malled Broadway are opulent parks, particularly the huge Saratoga Spa State Park, with golf courses, bathing houses, mineral springs and the SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center). There is also the National Museum of Dance, and the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, on Union Ave., the Lake George Opera festival in the State Park. The old Casino with sculptures by Daniel Chester French is in the Congress Park. Get a self-guiding tour book from the Chamber of Commerce, or buy a guide map (less expanatory) in a gas station.
Horse –playing seems to be a lost form of art in East Midtown. There is no longer an OTB parlor on Third Avenue, and one does not hear of adventures at Yonkers and Meadowlands, on a daily basis. Saratoga Springs, the earliest Thoroughbred course and the one- time racing capital built by New York’s mercantile aristocracy, is not a destination of the current generation. I only recall one neighbor, a labor lawyer and fellow parent at Friends Seminary on East 16th Street, who built their family vacations around the Saratoga racing season, with his family deposited at one of the local lake resorts while he spent his days at the clubhouse.
Saratoga Springs is a small Victorian town halfways between Albany and Lake George. in the vacationeers’ paradise part of New York. It is a three-four hour each way day trip for the hardy, with gate time at 1 PM and the last race around 6 PM. From the city, take the Deegan into the NY Thruway I-87N, continuing straight north, to Exit 13N, then follow Broadway (Rte 9), turn half-right at Circular Road, then a right at Union Ave. The Saratoga Racetrack will come up on your right, with opportunistic private parking lots ($10) and t-shirt shops on the left – the inside NY Racing Association’s parking lot (same price) tends to get filled up.
We followed an east-of-the –Hudson River route, along picturesque Taconic Parkway, turning left when it ends, into I-90W (a right will take you to Boston), then a right into I-87N, arriving some three hours late for the starting bell. The sunbathing parking attendant with a sea-shell necklace, seeing our hesitation, voluntarily reduced the price to $5, then directed us into a nice spot, half a block to the entrance. The crossing guide carefully held up the traffic, explaining with a smile that half of the drivers were on their cell-phones, not watching the lights. Another smiling man near the ticket booth gave us two-dollar discount tickets, reducing the entrance fee to a single dollar, and explained how to get to the clubhouse escalator (I had promised us the luxury of $15 shaded clubhouse seats).
Off the entrance, the back of the track tree-shaded picnic area is huge, with food tents, families and children playing games and eating Nathan’s hotdogs, while serious pater-fanilias study scratch sheets at picnic tables and watch the assembling race horses on giant TV screens, above rows of betting machines.
Once we escalated to the Clubhouse floor, a motherly ticket clerk sold us $2 admissions, then called us back, to stamp our wrists. The area in back of the seats had more Coke and beer stands, with betting machines and clerk windows lining the walls, front and back. A sweet lady watching the seat holders advised us to skip the additional expense of $10 and walk down to the free grandstand benches to enjoy the remaining three races. As we thought it over , I took my nearest-and-dearest’s picture against the track background. Suddenly, a feisty little woman passing by decided to photograph us together, and that done, declared she was leaving and would give us her red seat sticker. She actually took us there, past the guard.
That was nice, and sitting down, we explored the day’s race card, picking a couple of appealing names to bet on. Red sticker on, I walked up to the machines and asked a bettor where to insert my money. He told me to buy a voucher at the betting window, put it in the machine’s left-side slot, and follow instructions. The machine would spit out bet tickets from the slot on the right, along with a new voucher of my remaining balance.
That was not too hard, I bought a $10 voucher, fed it into the technological wonder, and informed it as how I was putting two bucks, to win, on Number Two. It worked, and, emboldened, I tried to experiment with another $2 to win, place and show on Number Seven. Ouch, it took $6, leaving me with a balance of $2. Slightly set aback, I came back to watch the horses assembling for the race, walked by horseback grooms to the starting gate, which was placed on the inside grass track, rather than the outside hard track. Number Two was there, showing odds of 9/5 to 1, with $35K bet on it, of a total handle of $150K for the race. They took off, to the modest cheers of the crowd around us, and guess what, Number Seven won, paying $11.20 for the lot. The two ladies sitting next to us congratulated me and explained that we were lucky to get to see the next race, a steeplechase, run only on Thursdays. It was a long race, twice around and more, and the early leader was chased down at the end.
A very gentile event, and a satisfying day.
Saratoga itself is an interesting old town, with more than 1000 columnated white Victorian buildings lining the side streets. The 100 local springs created an early European style health resort, and horse racing followed, inaugurated by legendary John “Old Smoke” Morrissey, a boxing champion, gambler and politician, in 1863, with the aid of such worthies as William P. Travers and Leonard P. Jerome (1817-91), grandfather of Winston Churchill (his daughter Jenny, born on Amity Street - or was it on Henry Street - in Brooklyn, married Sir Randolph Churchill, the Queen's sometime Chancellor of the Exchequer). Thoroughbreds race in August, with a harness race track, polo matches and other equestrian events throughout the year Along the wide center-malled Broadway are opulent parks, particularly the huge Saratoga Spa State Park, with golf courses, bathing houses, mineral springs and the SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center). There is also the National Museum of Dance, and the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, on Union Ave., the Lake George Opera festival in the State Park. The old Casino with sculptures by Daniel Chester French is in the Congress Park. Get a self-guiding tour book from the Chamber of Commerce, or buy a guide map (less expanatory) in a gas station.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 8:32 AM 
